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CHURCH AND STATE 

AXD OTHER ESSAYS 

INCLUDING 

MONEY; MAX AXD WOMAN: THEIR RESPECTIVE 

FUNCTIONS; THE MOTHER; A SECOXD 

SUPPLEMENT TO THE KREUTZER 

SOXATA 



BY 

COUNT LEO TOLSTOI 









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BOSTON, MASS. 

BEXJ. R. TUCKER, PUBLISHER 

1891 



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COPYRIGHT, 

BY BENJ. R. TUCKER, 

1891. 



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CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Church and State 5 

Money. . . 33 

Man and Woman : Their Kespectiye Functions . 137 

The Mother . . . 7 147 

A Second Supplement to the Kreutzer Sonata . 159 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



Translated by Victor Yarros. 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



Faith is that which invests life with mean- 
ing, that which gives strength and direction to 
life. 

Every living man discovers this meaning and 
lives upon it. 

Having failed to discover it, he dies. 

In his search, man avails himself of all that 
humanity has achieved. All that has been 
achieved by humanity is called revelation. 

Revelation is that which helps man to com- 
prehend the meaning of life. 
_J3uch is the relation of man to faith. 

What a wonderful thing, then ! Men appear, 
who toil unceasingly to make other people enjoy 
just this and no other form of revelation ; who 
cannot rest until others accept their, just their 
form of revelation, and who damn, execute, kill, 
as many as they can of the dissenters. Others 

7 . 



8 Church and State. 

do the same : damn, execute, and kill as many 
as possible of the dissenters ; still others also do 
the same. And thus, all damn, execute, kill, 
one another, demanding that all shall believe as 
they do. And the result is that there are hun- 
dreds of faiths, and that all damn, execute, and 
kill one another. 

At first it was amazing to me how such an 
evident absurdity, such an evident contradic- 
tion, failed to destroy faith itself. 

How could there remain people who believed 
in this delusion ? 

And indeed, from a general point of view, 
this is inconceivable, and irresistibly proves that 
every faith is a lie, and that the whole thing is 
superstition, — which is what the reigning phi- 
losophy does prove. 

Looking from the general point of view, I too 
had irresistibly been driven to the admission 
that all faiths are human delusions ; but I could 
not fail to pause at the reflection that the very 
silliness of the delusion, its manifestness, and 
the fact that nevertheless humanity submits to 
it, — that this very thing proves that at the 



Church and State, 9 

foundation of this delusion rests something that 
is not a delusion. 

Otherwise, it were all so foolish that people 
could not deceive themselves. 

The very submission of entire humanity, 
w T hich truly lives, to the delusion, obliged me 
to acknowledge the significance of that phenom- 
enon which is the cause of the delusion ; and 
upon this conviction I began to analyze the 
Christian doctrine, which serves as the foun- 
dation of the delusion of entire Christian 
humanity. 

So it appears from the general point of view ; 
but from the personal point of view, from that 
inconsequence of which every man (and I), in 
order to live, must have faith in the meaning of 
life, and has such faith, — this fact of compul- 
sion in the matter of faith is still more amazing 
in its absurdity. 

Realty, how, why, to whom, can it be neces- 
sary that another should not only believe, but 
profess, in the same way that I do ? 

A man lives, consequently he knows the 
meaning of life. He has fixed his relation to 



10 Church and State. 

God ; he knows the truth of truths, and I know 
the truth of truths. 

The forms of these may be different. 

The substance must be one and the same, — 
we are both men. 

How, why, what may compel me to demand 
from anybody that he shall manifest his truth 
absolutely as I do ? 

Compel him to change his faith I cannot; 
either by violence, cunning, or deception. (False 
miracles.) 

Faith in his life, — how then can I take away 
his faith and give him another? It is like tak- 
ing his heart out and putting another in. 

I can do it only if faith, his as well as mine, 
is — words, and not that whereby he lives ; if 
our faith is an excrescence, not the heart. 

Another reason why this cannot be done is 
that it is impossible to force a man to believe 
that which he does not believe, — that is, to 
fill his relation to God, — and because he who 
knows that faith is the relation of man to God 
cannot wish to determine the relations of an- 
other man to God through force or fraud. 



Church and State. 11 

This is impossible, but it is clone and has 
been done everywhere and always ; that is, 
it could not be done, since it is impossible, but 
something is being done and has been done 
that is very much like it. What is being done 
and has been done is the imposing by some on 
others the likeness of faith, and the acceptance 
of this likeness of faith by the others, — like^. 
ness of faith, — that is, the delusion of faith. 

Faith cannot impose itself, and cannot be 
adopted for the sake of anything, — violence, 
deception, or utility ; and hence it is not faith, 
but the delusion of faith. 

And this delusion of faith is the ancient 
condition of the life of humanity. 

In what, then, does this delusion consist, and 
on what is it founded? 

What produces it in the deceivers, and what 
sustains it in the deceived? 

I will not speak about Brahminism, Buddhism, 
Confucianism, Mohammedanism, in which the 
same phenomena have taken place ; not, however, 
because the same would not be found to be the 
case. To every one who has read about those 



12 . Church and State. 

religions it will be clear that with those faiths 
it is the same as with Christianity. I will 
speak exclusively about Christianity, as a faith 
familiar to us, needful and dear to us. 

In Christianity the whole delusion is built 
on the fanatical idea of Church, based on noth- 
ing, and astounding, at the commencement of 
the study of Christianity, in its unexpected 
and useless absurdity. 

Of all the godless ideas and terms, there is 
no term and concept more godless than the 
'idea of Church. 

There is no idea that has produced more 
evil, no idea more hostile to the doctrine of 
^Christ, than the idea of Church. 

At bottom, the word Eeelesia means collection 
and nothing more, and so it is used in the 
Gospels. 

In the languages of all new peoples the word 
Eeelesia signifies house of worship. 

Further than these significations, in spite of 
the fifteen centuries' existence of the delusion 
of Church, this word has not advanced in any 
language. 



Church and State. 13 

According to the definitions given to this 
word by those priests who need this delusion 
of Church, it is nothing else than an introduc- 
tion to this effect: 

" Everything I am about to say is truth, 
and, if you will not believe, I shall burn you, 
or damn you, and in every way work you 
injury." 

This idea is a sophism, necessary for certain 
dialectical purposes, and it remains the inheri- 
tance of those who need it. 

Among the people, and not only among the 
people, but in society, and among educated 
men, in spite of the fact that the Catechism 
teaches it, this .idea does not exist. 

This definition (however ashamed one may 
be to analyze it seriously, it has to be done, 
seeing that so many people put it forward as 
something important) is totally false. 

When it is said that the Church is the con- 
gregation of the truly-faithful, nothing is really 
said ; since, if I say that a chapel is the con- 
gregation of all true musicians, I say nothing if 
I do not declare whom I call true musicians. 



14 Church and State. 

While, according to theology, the truly-faith- 
ful are those who follow the doctrine of the 
Church, — that is, are in the Church. 

To say nothing of the circumstance that of 
such true faiths there are hundreds, the defi- 
nition tells us nothing, and would even seem 
useless, did not the trace of a certain ear-mark 
become perceptible here. 

The Church is true and one, and in her are 
the pastors and papacies ; and the pastors, ap- 
pointed by God, teach this true and unitary 
doctrine, — that is, 

" By God, Everything We are Going to Say, 
everything is genuine truth." 

And nothing more ! 

The whole delusion is here, in the word and 
in the idea, Church. And the delusion only 
signifies that there are people who have an 
immoderate desire to teach their faith to others. 

But for what end do they wish so strongly to 
teach others their faith ? 

Did they possess genuine faith, they would 
know that in faith is the meaning of life, the 
relation to God, fixed by every man individu- 



Church and State. 15 

ally, and that it is therefore impossible to teach 
faith, but only the delusion of faith. 

But they desire to teach. 

To what end? 

The simplest answer would be that the Pope 
needs cakes and eggs, the bishops a castle, fish- 
pie, and a silken cassock. But this answer is 
insufficient. 

Such, no doubt, is the inward, psychological 
motive of the delusion, the motive maintaining 
it; but, reasoning thus, how could one man 
(executioner) venture to kill another against 
whom he has no malice? 

It would be inadequate to say that the execu- 
tioner kills because he is not given brandy, a 
loaf of white bread, and a red shirt ; just in the 
same degree w^ould it be inadequate to say that 
the Metropolitan of Kieff and the monks fill 
sacks with straw which they call saints' relics, 
just for the sake of getting an income of thirty 
thousand. 

Both acts, the one and the other, are too ter- 
rible and repugnant to human nature to allow 
such an explanation to be adequate. 



16 Qhurch and State. 

As the executioner, so the Metropolitan, in 
explaining his act, will cite a whole series of 
proofs, the chief basis of which will be historical 
tradition. 

"It is necessary to execute men; since the 
world came into existence there have been exe- 
cutions. If not I, then somebody else. I will 
do it, I hope, with the aid of God, better than 
another," will say the executioner. 

"Formal worship is necessary ; since the world 
came into existence, the relics of the saints have 
been honored," will say the Metropolitan ; " the 
relics of the caves are honored; people come 
here. If not I, then somebody else will play 
the host here. And I, with the aid of God, 
hope to dispose of the money, got by blasphe- 
mous fraud, in a way more pleasing to God." 

To understand the delusion of faith, it , is 
necessary to go to its source, to the origin. 

We speak of that which we know in reference 
to Christianity. 

Turning to the original Christian doctrine in 
the Gospels, we find a doctrine directly exclud- 
ing formal vorship, censuring it, and one that 



Qhurch and State. 17 

with particular plainness and positiveness denies 
all teaching. 

But since Christ's time, and down to ours, 
we find a deviation of doctrine from the founda- 
tions laid by Christ. 

This deviation begins at the time of the 
apostles, especially with that lover of teaching, 
Paul; and the wider Christianity extends, the 
more it deviates and appropriates the methods 
of that very external worship and dogmatism 
the denial of which was so positively expressed 
by Christ. 

But in the first days of Christianity the idea 
of Church is used only as a representation of all 
those who share the faith which I consider the 
true one. y ^- 

A wholly true idea, provided it does not in- 
clude mere verbal manifestations of beliefs (but 
expressions by means of the entire life), since 
beliefs cannot be manifested by words. 

The conception of the true Church was also 
used as an argument against the opponents ; 
but until Emperor Constantine and the Nicaean 
Council, Church was only an idea, r > 



18 Church and State. 

But since Constantine and the Nicsean Coun- 
cil the Church has been a thing, and a thing of 
fraud. 

The fraud begins with the Metropolitan and 
the relics, the priests and the Lord's Supper, 
Synods, and the like, which so astound and 
horrify us, and which, from their ugliness, do 
not find an adequate explanation in the mere 
advantage derived by those persons. 

The delusion is old, and did not proceed from 
the mere advantages to private persons: there 
lives no such man, monster, who would deter- 
mine to do it if he were the first and if there 
were no other causes. 

The causes that led to it were bad ones. 

" By their fruits shall you know them." 

The source was evil : hate, human pride, hos- 
tility toward Arius and others, and another still 
graver evil, — the union of Christianity with 
power. 

Power: Constantine, emperor, according to 
heathen ideas one who stands at the height of 
human grandeur (he was counted among the 
gods), accepts Christianity, furnishes an ex- 



Church and State. 19 

ample to the whole nation, converts the nation, 
and extends a helping hand as against heretics, 
and through the ecumenical council fixes the 
unitary orthodox Christian faith. 

The Christian Catholic faith is fixed forever. 

So natural was it to yield to that delusion 
that even unto this day men believe in the salu- 
tariness of that event. While the event was 
really such that, thanks to it, the majority of 
Christians have repudiated their faith. That 
was the point where the overwhelming majority 
of Christians took the heathen road, which is 
still followed. 

Charles the Great, Vladimir, continue the 
same work. 

And the delusion has continued up to our 
time, the delusion being right here, — for the 
acceptance of power by Christianity is needful 
for those who understand the letter, but not the 
spirit, of Christianity. 

In reality, the acceptance of Christianity 
without the repudiation of power is a mockery 
and perversion of Christianity. 

The consecration of governmental power by 



20 Church and State. 

Christianity is blasphemy, is the doom of Chris- 
tianity. 

Having lived fifteen hundred years under 
this blasphemous union of pretended Christian- 
ity with Government, it is necessary to make a 
great effort in order to forget those intricate 
sophisms which for fifteen centuries, every- 
where, at power's pleasure, have perverted the 
doctrine of Christ, to make it compatible with 
Government, and the attempts to explain the 
sacredness, legitimacy of Government, and the 
possibility of its being Christian, 

At bottom, the words, " Christian Govern- 
ment " are like the words, " warm, hot ice." 

Either there is no Government, or there is no 
Christianity. 

To understand this clearly, it is necessary to 
forget all those phantasies in which we are care- 
fully educated, and plainly inquire into the 
import of those sciences, historical and judicial, 
which we are taught. 

These sciences are without any foundations ; 
all these sciences are nothing else than an apol- 
ogy for violence o 



Church and State. 21 

Passing by the history of the Mecles and 
Persians, etc., let us take that Government 
which first made a union with Christianity. 

There was a cut-throats' nest in Rome. It 
spread by robbery, violence, murder. It con- 
quered nations. The robbers and their descend- 
ants, with chiefs (who were called, now Caesar, 
now Augustus) at their head, plundered and 
tortured the people to gratify their desires. 
One of the descendants of these cut-throats, 
Constantine, having read a great deal in books 
and having become satiate with his voluptuous 
living, preferred certain dogmas of Christianity 
to previous beliefs ; to the bringing of human 
sacrifices, he preferred grand mass ; to the wor- 
ship of Apollo and Venus and Jupiter, he pre- 
ferred the one God, with his Son Christ ; and he 
ordered the introduction of this faith among 
those who were under his authority. 

" Kings rule over their peoples ; this shall not 
be among you. — Do not kill. — Do not com- 
mit adultery. — Abjure riches. — Do not judge ; 
do not condemn. — Endure evil." 

All this nobody told him of. 



22 Church and State. 

"Oh, you wish to call yourself a Christian 
and continue to be the chief of the cut-throats, 
— to assault, burn, fight, do mischief, execute, 
and revel ? All right ! " 

And they furnished him a Christianity, and 
made it very comfortable, — better than could 
have been expected. 

They anticipated that he might, on reading 
the Gospel, bethink himself that there more is 
demanded of him than the building of churches 
and the visiting them, that a Christian life is 
there required ; and they thoughtfully and with 
foresight constructed such a Christianity for 
him that he could without embarrassment live 
in the old, heathen way. 

On the one hand, Christ, the Son of God, 
appeared for no other purpose than to redeem 
him, Constantine, and all the others. Because 
Christ died, Constantine can live as he pleases. 

And if this is not enough, one may repent and 
swallow a piece of bread with some wine ; — in 
this there will be salvation and all will be for- 
given. And not satisfied with this, they even 
consecrated his ruffianly power, and said that 
he was from God ; and anointed him with oil. 



Church and State. 23 

For this he, too, arranged for them as they 
desired. He called a council of priests, had 
them declare what the relation of every man 
should be to God and every other man, and the 
same he ordered to be repeated. 

And all were satisfied; and thus for a thou- 
sand years has this faith lived in the world, and 
other cut-throat chiefs have introduced it, and 
they are all anointed, and everything, every- 
thing, is from God. 

If some villain plunders everybody, massa- 
cres many people, he will be anointed by them, 
— he is from God. 

Some nations have had husband-slayers and 
libertines. 

The French have had Napoleon. 

And the priests, in compensation for this, not 
only are from God, but almost are themselves 
gods, since in them resides the Holy Ghost. 
He resides in the priests as well as in the 
Synod, with its commanders, the officials. 

And as soon as a certain anointed — that is, 
a cut-throat chief — becomes possessed of the 
desire to massacre another as well as his peo- 



24 Church and State. 

pie, holy water is at once made for him, some 
of it is sprinkled, the cross is taken up (that 
very cross carrying which Christ died, because 
he repudiated these very cut-throats), and a 
blessing is bestowed on massacre, hangings, and 
beheadings. 

And everything would be well ; but even 
here they could not agree among themselves, 
and the anointed proceeded to call each other 
cut-throats (that which they really are), while 
the people began to listen and ceased to believe 
either the anointed or the keepers of the Holy 
Ghost, but learned from their own lips to call 
them by their real names, as they themselves 
call each other, — namely, cut-throats and im- 
postors. 

But to the cut-throats we have only referred 
a propos, since they had traduced the impostors. 

Our talk is properly about the impostors, the 
pretended Christians. 

Such they have become in consequence of the 
union with the cut-throats. 

And it could not be otherwise. They deviated 
from the path at the first minute that they con- 



Church and State. 25 

secrated the first Emperor, and assured hini that 
he could help the faith with his violence, — the 
faith of humility, self-denial, and the endurance 
of injury. 

The whole history of the actual Church, — 
not the fantastic, — that is, the history of the 
hierarchy under the authority of the emperors, 
is a series of vain attempts on the part of this 
unfortunate hierarchy to preserve the truth of 
the doctrine, while propagating it by means of 
lies and abjuring it in practice. 

The importance of the hierarchy is based 
only on the doctrine which it intends to teach. 

The doctrine speaks about humility, self-abne- 
gation, love, destitution; but the doctrine is 
propagated by violence, hatred, and evil. 

That the hierarchy may have something to 
teach, that there may be disciples, it is needful 
not to forsake the doctrine ; while in order to 
whitewash itself and its illegitimate union with 
power, it is necessary to disguise by the shrewd- 
est considerations the substance of the doctrine 
and to transfer for the purpose its centre of 
gravity, from the substance of the doctrine to 
its formal side. 



26. Church and State. 

And this is what the hierarchy is doing, — 
this is the source of that delusion of faith prop- 
agated by the Church. 

The source is the union of the hierarchy with 
violence under the respective names of Church 
and power. 

As to the source of people's desire to teach 
their faith to others, it is found in the fact 
that faith unmasks them, and they are obliged 
to substitute, in place of genuine faith, one of 
their own invention, to be justified by it. 

Genuine faith may exist everywhere except 
where it is obviously false, — that is, addicted 
to violence. 

Everywhere, but not in Government-imposed 
faith. 

Genuine faith may exist in all so-called 
schisms, heresies, but certainly cannot exist 
only where it is united with Government. 

Strange to say, but the appellations, ortho- 
dox, Catholic, Protestant faith, as these words 
are fixed in common speech, signify nothing 
else than faith united with power, Government 
faith, and hence false. 



Church and State. 27 

The conception of Church, — that is, una- 
nimity of many, of the majority, and at the 
same time the proximity to the source during 
the first two centuries of Christianity, — was 
but one of the weak formal arguments. 

Paul said: 

"I know from Christ himself." 

Another said: 

"I know from Luke." 

And all said: 

"We think rightly, and the proof of this is 
that there is a large congregation of us, Ecclesia, 
Church." 

But only after the Mcsean Council, arranged 
by the Emperor, did the direct and conscious 
delusion begin for a part of those who professed 
the same faith. 

"It pleases us and the Holy Ghost," they 
began to say then. 

The conception of Church became not merely 
a poor argument, but also, for some, a power. 

The Church united with power, and began to 
act as a power. 

And everything that united itself with power 



28 Church and State. 

and yielded to it ceased to be faith, and became 
delusion. 

What does Christianity teach, whether under- 
stood as the doctrine of a given church, or of 
all churches? 

Analyze it as you like, shift or subdivide, the 
Christian doctrine will at once separate itself 
into two sharp parts : 

1. The doctrine of dogmas, beginning with 
God's Son, Holy Ghost, and the relation be- 
tween these personalities, down to the Lord's 
Supper, with or without wine, with fresh or 
sour bread. 

2. And the moral doctrine, — humility, in- 
difference to wealth, bodily and spiritual purity, 
charity, emancipation from slavery, bonds, and 
worldliness. 

Notwithstanding all the efforts of the Church 
to blend these two phases of the doctrine, they 
never intermixed, and, like oil and water, have 
always kept apart from each other in large or 
small drops. 

The difference between these two sides of the 
doctrine is clear to every one, and every one 



Church and State. 29 

may trace the fruits of one and the other side 
of the doctrine in the lives of nations, and from 
these fruits may conclude which side is the 
more important ; or, if one may say truer, then 
which one is the truer? 

Glance at the history of Christianity from 
this side, and a terror will come upon you. 

Without exception, from the very beginning 
to the very end, to our time, wherever you will 
look, whatever dogma you will glance at, even 
at the first, — the dogma of the divinity of 
Christ, — and down to the communion, with or 
without wine, the fruits of all these intellectual 
labors upon the elucidation of dogmas are : mal- 
ice, hatred, executions, expulsions, the massa- 
cres of wives and children, stakes, and tortures. 

Look at the other side, — the moral doctrine : 
from the retiring to the desert for commun- 
ion with God, down to the custom to carry 
loaves of bread to the prison, the fruits of this 
doctrine are all our ideas of good, all our joy, 
consolation, and light. 

Those men before whose eyes the fruits of 
the one and the other have not yet clearly mani- 



30 Church and State. 

fested themselves could fall into error, could 
only fall into error. Those, too, could fall into 
error who were sincerely carried away by the 
disputes about dogmas, not perceiving that they, 
by these dogmas, served the devil, not God, not 
noting that Christ explicitly said that he had 
come to destroy all dogmas. 

Those, too, could fall into error who, having 
inherited the traditions about the importance of 
those dogmas, received such a wrong mental 
training that they cannot see their mistake. 

Those, too, may err who are ignorant and to 
whom these dogmas represent nothing but 
words and fantastic images. 

But we, to whom is open the original mean- 
ing of the Gospels, which denies all dogmas ; 
we who have before our eyes the fruits of these 
dogmas in history, we may not err. History is 
for us the test of the truth of the doctrine, a 
test almost mechanical. 

The dogma of immaculate conception, is it 
needful or not? 

What has resulted from it? 

Wickedness, abuse, derision. 



Church and State. 31 

Was there any benefit? 

None. 

The doctrine that the adulteress is not to be 
condemned, is it needful or not? 

What has resulted from it? 

Thousands and thousands of* times have men 
been mollified by this reminder. 

Another consideration. Take any dogma 
whatever, are all agreed upon it? 

No. 

And about giving to him who begs? 

All. 

Thus, the first, the dogmas, on which there is 
no agreement, which nobody needs, which ruins 
men, — this the hierarchy has advanced and is 
advancing as the faith ; while the second, that 
on which all are agreed, which all need, and 
which saves men, — this, though the hierarchy 
has not dared to deny it, it also has not dared 
to advance as the doctrine, for this doctrine 
denies the hierarchy itself. 



MONEY. 



Translated by Victor Yarros. 



MONEY. 



Money ! What is money ? Money repre- 
sents labor. 

I have met people who even held that money 
represents the labor of him who possesses it. 

I confess that formerly I vaguely shared this 
opinion. But it was essential for me to learn 
fully what money is. And in order to learn 
this, I turned to science. 

Science says that money is not at all unjust 
or pernicious ; that money is the natural condi- 
tion of social life, indispensable : 

1. To facility of exchange ; 

2. To determination of measures of value ; 

3. To purposes of saving ; and 

4. To make payments. 

The potent fact that I, having three roubles 
in my pocket which I do not want, only need 
to whistle in order to gather around me, in 

35 



36 Money. 

every civilized city, a hundred men, ready, for 
the three roubles, to perform the hardest and 
most disgusting jobs, — this fact, it is alleged, 
is not due to money, but to highly complex con- 
ditions of the economic life of nations. 

The rule of some people oyer others is not 
due to money, but to the fact that the laborer 
does not receive the full value of his labor. 
And the failure of the laborer to receive this 
full value is due to the properties of capital, 
rent, and wages, and the complicated relations 
between these factors and the processes of pro- 
duction, distribution, and consumption of wealth. 

In plain language, it might be said that those 
who have money can do what they please with 
those who have none ; but science says that 
this is irrelevant. 

Science says : 

" In every species of production these factors 
take part: land, store d-up labor (capital), and 
labor. And from the different relations between 
these factors, and from the fact that the first 
two factors — land and capital — are in the 
hands, not of the laborers, but of other persons, 



Money, 37 

with all the complex combinations consequent 
upon it, results the enslavement of some men 
by others." 

How does that rule of money come about, 
which astounds us by its injustice and cruelty? 

How does it come about that by means of 
money some people rule over others ? 

Science says : 

It results from the division in the factors of 
production and the combinations consequent 
upon it which oppress the laborer. 

This answer has always appeared strange to 
me, not only because it ignores one side of the 
question, — namely, the role played by mone}^, 
— but also on account of that division in the 
factors of production which, to an unprejudiced 
man, always appears artificial and non-natural. 

It is asserted that in every act of production 
three factors take part : land, capital, and labor ; 
and it is implied that wealth (or the money 
equivalent) naturally gets divided among those 
who possess one or another of the factors. 

Rent, the value of the land, belongs to the 
landlord, 



38 Money. 

Interest, to the capitalist, and 
Wages for labor, to the laborer. 
Is it not so ? 

But is it really true that in any production 
these factors take part ? 

As I write these lines, people around me are 
occupied in producing hay. 

What are the elements constituting this pro- 
duction ? 

I am told: There is the land on which the 
grass was grown, the capital, — scythes, rakes, 
hayforks, and the carts for the getting-in of the 
hay, — and the labor. 

But I see that this is not true. 

Besides the land, there enter into the pro- 
duction the sun, water, the social organization 
which protects the meadow from cattle, the 
skill of the laborers, their facilities of speech 
and understanding, and yet many other factors 
which, for some reason, are not taken cogni- 
zance of by political economy. 

The properties of the sun are just as much 
a factor as, and more indispensable than, land. 



Money. 39 

I can imagine people living in a condition 
where (as in cities) some people consider them- 
selves entitled to shut others out of the sun- 
light by walls or trees. Why then is not the 
sun included in the factors of production ? 

Water is another factor equally indispensa- 
ble with land. Air, still another. And I can 
also imagine people deprived of water and pure 
air, because other people claim the right to 
dispose at will of the water and air needful 
to the first. 

Social safety is an equally indispensable factor. 

Food and clothing for the laborers, another 
factor, as indeed some economists allow. 

Education, which makes it possible to intro- 
duce reason into production, is also a factor. 

I could fill a volume with such ignored 
factors. 

Why, then, are the above three factors se- 
lected and made the basis of science ? Why 
are not the rays of the sun, water, food, educa- 
tion, assigned as factors, while only land, means 
of production, and labor are assigned? 

The only reason I can think of is that but 



40 Money. 

very seldom do men claim the privilege of 
appropriating sunlight, water, air, food, etc., 
while the claims upon land and the means of 
production are constantly and perpetually made 
in our society. 

There is no other ground; and thus I see 
that the division of the factors of production 
into three categories is wholly arbitrary and 
not in harmony with the essence of things. 

But perhaps this division is so natural to men 
that, wherever economic relations develop, these 
three factors straightway become prominent? 

Let us see if this be so. 

First, I look at the nearest case, of the Rus- 
sian colonists, of whom there are a million. 

These colonists arrive at their destination, 
settle upon the land, and begin to work. It 
does not enter anybody's head that a man who 
does not use land can have any rights over it, 
while the land itself does not make any claim 
to distinct rights. On the contrary, the colo- 
nists deliberately proclaim the land to be com- 
mon property, and think it just for each to 
sow and reap as much as, and where, he likes. 



Money. 41 

* The colonists introduce implements for the 
cultivation of the fields, for planting gardens, 
and building houses, and again, it does not 
enter anybody's mind that the instruments of 
production could of themselves produce any 
revenue, while capital clamors for no rights. 
On the contrary, the colonists deliberately con- 
clude that any profit from the use of the imple- 
ments, from the loan of grain, from capital, is 
an injustice. 

The colonists work, on free land, with their 
own implements or with such as are loaned 
to them without interest, every one for him- 
self or all together for the common interest, 
and in such a commune neither rent, interest, 
nor wages can be found. 

In speaking of such communities, I am not 
inventing, but describing that which has existed 
at all times and which exists now, not only 
among Russian colonists, but everywhere, as 
long as the natural qualities of men remain 
unperverted by anything. I am describing that 
which represents itself to everybody as natural 
and rational. 



42 . Money. 

Men settle on land, and each member goes 
about his vocation. Having made the neces- 
sary tools, each proceeds with his work. If 
it appears more convenient to work together, 
a cooperative organization is formed. But 
neither in private holdings nor in such or- 
ganizations will there be distinct factors of 
production; there will simply be labor and 
the necessary conditions of labor : the sun, 
warming all ; the air, which all breathe ; the 
water, which all drink ; the land, which all till ; 
clothes on the bodies; food in the stomach; a 
shovel, a plough, a machine by which they 
work. And it is evident that neither sun, nor 
air, nor water, nor land, nor clothes, nor plough, 
can be the property of anybody except those 
who use these things, who enjoy the sun's rays, 
breathe the air, drink the water, eat the bread, 
cover their bodies, and use the shovel or the 
machine, because these are needful only to 
those who use them. And when people act 
thus, we all see that they act as befits men, — 
that is, rationally. 

Thus, when I observe the formation of men's 



Money. 43 

economic relations, I fail to find that the 
division of the factors of production into three 
categories is natural to men. I see, on the 
contrary, that it is unnatural and irrational. 

But perhaps this division is unnatural in 
primitive societies alone, while upon increase 
of population and development of the arts 
and sciences it becomes indispensable? Per- 
haps it is true that this division has been 
accomplished in European society, and we can- 
not refuse to acknowledge the accomplished 
fact? 

Let us see if this is so. 

We are told that this division of factors of 
production is accomplished, — that is, that some 
men possess the land, others the means of pro- 
duction, while still others are destitute of both 
land and capital. 

The laborer is without land and instruments 
of production. 

We are so accustomed to this assertion that 
we no longer are struck by its strangeness. 
If, however, we ponder over this statement, we 
at once see its injustice and even its absurdity. 



44 Money. 

In that statement there is an essential con- 
tradiction. 

The conception of the laborer includes the 
conception of the land on which he lives and 
the implements with which he works : if he 
did not live on land and did not possess in- 
struments of labor, he would not be a laborer. 
There never has been, and never can be, a 
laborer without land and instruments of labor. 
There can be no farmer without land to farm 
on and without scythe, cart, horse. Likewise 
there can be no shoemaker without a house 
built on land, without water, air, and tools to 
work with. 

If the farmer does not possess land, a horse, 
and a scythe ; if the shoemaker has not a house, 
water, and awl, — then that means that some 1 
body has driven the farmer off of his land, 
and has taken away from him, by force or 
fraud, his scythe, cart, and horse ; but it in no 
way signifies that there may be farmers with- 
out scythes or shoemakers without tools. 

As it is impossible to think of a fisherman 
on dry land and without fishing implements, 



Money. 45 

unless we think of him as driven away from 
the w T ater and robbed of his fishing imple- 
ments, so it is impossible to think of a peasant 
without land and tools, unless we imagine that 
somebody drove him from the land and took 
away his implements. 

There may exist people who are driven from 
one place to another, who have their imple- 
ments taken away from them, and who are 
compelled to make with others' tools things 
they do not want; but this does not signify 
that such is the character of production; it 
means only that there are cases where the 
natural character of production is perverted. 
If, however, we are to consider as factors of 
production all that a laborer might be deprived 
of by force, then why not consider the claim 
on the person of the slave <a factor of produc- 
tion ? Why not count the claims on the sun's 
rays, on air or water, as factors ? 

A man may build a wall and shut out his 
neighbor from sunlight ; a man may poison 
the water of a river by directing it into a 
pond; and a man may claim another's person 



46 Money. 

as his property; but neither the first, second, 
nor third claim, if carried into operation by 
force, can be acknowledged as a basis for a 
division of the factors of production. And 
therefore it is just as wrong to accept the 
alleged rights to the land and tools as factors 
of production as it is to accept the alleged 
rights to the exclusive use of the sun's rays, 
air, water, and the person of another as distinct 
factors of production. 

There may be people who lay claim to the 
land and the tools of the laborers, just as there 
have been people who have claimed rights over 
the person of the laborer, and as there may be 
people who claim the right to the exclusive 
enjoyment of the sun's rays, water, air. There 
may be people who drive the laborer from place 
to place, and who rob him of the products of his 
labor, as fast as they are turned out, and of the 
instruments of production, and who compel him 
to work for a master instead of for himself, 
as is done in the factories; all this is possible. 
But there can be no laborer without land, just 
as there can be no property in man, notwith- 



Money. 47 

standing the fact that for a long time the 
latter was considered possible. 

And as the assertion of the right of property 
in the person of another cannot deprive the 
slave of his inherent tendency to seek his own, 
and not his master's, good, so, in this case, the 
assertion of the right of property in land and 
others' instruments of production cannot de- 
prive the laborer of man's inherent tendency 
to live on land and work with his own or 
with communal instruments on things which 
he deems useful for himself. 

All that science can say in examining the 
prevailing economic condition is that there are 
certain claims made by some men upon the 
land and tools of the workers, in consequence 
of which, for a certain portion (but by no 
means for all) of the workers, the natural 
conditions of production are violated, so that 
laborers are deprived of land and tools and 
driven to work with others' tools. But science 
cannot say that this accidental violation of the 
natural law of production is in fact the funda- 
mental law of production. 



48 Money. 

Affirming that the division of the factors of 
production is really the fundamental law of 
production, the economist is doing precisely 
that which the zoologist would do if, finding a 
great number of siskins in cages, with clipped 
wings, he concluded that the cage, and the 
little water-bowl moving on rails, are the essen- 
tial conditions of the existence of the birds, 
and that the life of the birds depends on the 
three factors, the cage, the water-bowl, and 
the clipped wings. 

However large the number of siskins in cages 
and with clipped wings, the zoologist cannot 
infer that cages are the natural condition of 
birds. 

However large the number of laborers driven 
from their place, and lacking the fruits as well 
as the instruments of their production, the nat- 
ural condition of the laborer will always be 
that of living on his land and producing with 
his own tools that which he wants. 

To be sure there are claims made upon the 
land and tools of the laborer, just as there 
were in the ancient society; but there can be 



Money. 49 

no such division of the factors of production 
into land and capital as the economists wish 
to fix in modern society. 

And these illegitimate claims of some upon 
the freedom of other people, science calls the 
natural conditions of production. 

Instead of deriving its fundamental proposi- 
tions from the natural condition of human so- 
cieties, science has taken them from a special 
case ; and, wishing to justify this special case, 
it has acknowledged the right of one man to 
the land which supports another, — that is, it has 
acknowledged a right which never has existed 
and which cannot exist, and whose expression 
contains a contradiction, since the right of a 
man to land which he does not cultivate is 
at bottom nothing else than the right to use 
that which he does not use, while the right to 
the instruments of production is the right to 
use instruments which he really does not use. 

By its division of the factors of production, 
science affirms that the natural condition of 
the laborer is that unnatural condition in which 
he is now placed, just as in the ancient world 



50 Money. 

the division of men into citizens and slaves 
was an affirmation that the unnatural condition 
of the slaves was the natural condition of some 
men. 

This division, accepted by science for no 
other end than to justify the existing wrong, 
which is made the basis of all her investiga- 
tions, is responsible for the fact that science 
vainly endeavors to give anything like expla- 
nations of existing phenomena, denying the 
most patent and simple answers to the ques- 
tions suggested and giving answers that are 
absolutely empty. 

The question of economic science is this: 

What is the cause of the fact that some peo- 
ple, in possession of land and capital, can enslave 
those men who do not possess land and capital ? 

The answer which occurs to common sense is 
that this results from money, which possesses 
the quality of converting people into slaves. 

But science denies this and says : 

This results, not from the nature of money, 
but from the fact that some people possess land 
and capital, while others do not. 



Money. 51 

We inquire: Why do the men possessing land 
and capital enslave the disinherited? 

The answer is : Because they possess land and 
capital. 

But this is just what our question is about. 

Xon-possession of land and capital is enslave- 
ment. 

While the answer is no better than, " The 
remedy is narcotic because it has a narcotic 
effect," 

Life does not cease to parade its important 
question, and even science is made aware of it 
and tries to answer it ; but it cannot do it while 
starting from its present basis, and so turns in a 
vicious circle. 

In order to answer the question, science must 
begin by repudiating the false division of the 
factors of production, — that is, must cease to 
look upon the effects of phenomena as in 
causes, and must seek, first the immediate, and 
then the remote, causes of those phenomena 
which constitute the object of its researches. 

Science must answer the question, What is 
the reason that some people are deprived of 



52 Money. 

land and means of production, while others pos- 
sess them ? 

Or: what causes the alienation of land and 
means of production from those who cultivate 
the land and use the instruments ? 

And as soon as science shall put the question 
in this form, entirely new considerations will 
offer themselves, which will reverse all the pos- 
tulates of the exploded science, which turns in 
the vicious circle of the assertions that the con- 
dition of the laborer is miserable because it is 
miserable. 

To plain people it appears beyond doubt that 
the immediate cause of the enslavement of some 
men by others is monej^. But science, denjdng 
this, says that money is only a medium of 
exchange, which has no connection with the 
enslavement of men. 

Let us see if this is really so. 



What is the origin of money ? 

Under what conditions of national existence 
is money invariably used, and under what con- 
ditions do we know nations doing without 
money? 



Money. 53 

In Africa, in Australia, there live small na- 
tions in ways that were in vogue in ancient 
times. The tribe lives, engaged in agriculture, 
horticulture, and cattle-breeding. We learn of 
it at the threshold of history. 

History begins with the invasion of con- 
querors. 

The conquerors always do the same thing, — 
they take away from the people all that they 
possibly can, — cattle, grain, textures, even men 
and women they take away as prisoners. 

After a few years the conquerors return, but 
the people have not had time to recuperate after 
the ruin, and there is nothing to appropriate ; 
so new methods of exploiting the tribe's powers 
are thought of. 

These methods are very simple, and spon- 
taneously occur to all men. 

The first method is personal slavery. 

This method is inconvenient, inasmuch as it 
involves the control of all the working powers 
of the tribe and the feeding of the whole, and 
naturally the second method suggests itself, — 
that of leaving the tribe on its land, which the 



54 Money. 

conquerors declare their property, and the divis- 
ion of it among certain warriors, who become 
the agents through whom the labor of the tribe 
is passed to the conquerors. 

But this method, too, has its inconveniences. 
The warriors are obliged to control the entire 
production of the tribe, and there is introduced 
the third method, equally primitive, which con- 
sists of the levy of a fixed periodical tribute 
upon the conquered. 

The aim of the conqueror is to appropriate 
the greatest possible quantity of the products of 
the conquered. 

In order to take the greatest quantity, the 
conqueror must take the things which are most 
valuable to the tribe, and which at the same 
time are not hard to transport and keep, — furs, 
gold. 

So the tribute is usually fixed in furs or gold 
and collected periodically from the families or 
the tribe, and by means of this tribute the con- 
querors enjoy in the most convenient way the 
fruits of the tribe's labor. 

When all the gold and furs are taken away, 



Money. 55 

the members of the tribe are obliged to sell to 
each other, to the conqueror, to the warriors, all 
that they possess : their goods, as well as their 
labor. 

So it was in antiquity, so it was in the Middle 
Ages, and so it is now. 

In antiquity, with its frequent conquests of 
nations and the absence of human equality, per- 
sonal slavery was the most wide-spread method 
of subjugating men. 

In the Middle Ages the feudal system, — that 
is, landed property and the accompanying serf- 
dom, — partially supplants personal slavery, and 
the centre of gravity of subjugation is trans- 
ferred from the person to the land. 

In modern times, since the discovery of 
America and the development of commerce, 
with the overflow of gold made the universal 
money token, the money-tribute has become, 
with the strengthening of governmental author- 
ity, the chief means of the subjugation of men, 
and by it are determined all the economic rela- 
tions of men. 

In the " Literary Magazine " Professor Yan- 



56 Money. 

joul narrates the recent history of the Fiji 
Islands. 

On the South-Sea Islands, in Polynesia, lives 
the Fiji tribe. 

The whole group of islands, says Professor 
Yanjoul, consists of a large number of small 
islands occupying an area of about forty thou- 
sand English square miles. Only half of the 
area is inhabited, by about fifteen thousand 
natives and fifteen hundred whites. The na- 
tives have long lived in a more or less civilized 
state, are superior to the other native tribes of 
Polynesia, and represent a people capable of 
development, which they have shown by learn- 
ing to be, in a short time, good agriculturists 
and cattle-breeders. 

The inhabitants of the islands were prosper- 
ous. But in 1858 the kingdom found itself in a 
desperate condition : the Fiji nation and its 
king, Kakabo, wanted money. 

They needed forty-five thousand dollars to 
compensate the United States for alleged in- 
juries that had been inflicted by Fijians upon 
certain citizens of the American republic. To 



Money. 57 

collect the tax, the Americans sent a squadron, 
which suddenly seized some of the best islands, 
as collateral, and threatened to bombard and 
destroy the settlements if the tax should not be 
paid to the American representatives at a speci- 
fied date. 

The Americans were among the first colonists 
that appeared, together with the missionaries, 
on the Fiji Islands. 

Selecting and seizing, under this or that pre- 
text, the best patches of land on the islands, and 
founding there cotton and coffee plantations, 
the Americans hired whole bands of natives, 
binding them by contracts unintelligible to 
them, or procuring them through dealers in 
live merchandise. 

Conflicts between these master-planters and 
the natives, who were regarded as slaves, were 
inevitable. Some of these conflicts it was which 
served as an excuse for the contribution levied 
by the Americans. 

In spite of the prosperous condition of the 
islands, the Fijians have preserved the forms of 
natural economic organization which existed in 



58 Money. 

Europe during the Middle Ages, down to our 
own time. There was no money in circulation 
among the natives, and the entire commerce had 
the character of barter exclusively ; commodities 
were exchanged for commodities, and the few 
local and royal taxes were also paid directly 
in rural products. 

What could the Fijians and their king, 
Kakabo, do when the Americans categorically 
demanded forty-five thousand dollars under the 
threat of direst penalties ? 

This sum alone was something inconceivable 
to the Fijians, to say nothing about money, 
which they had never seen in such quantities. 

Kakabo took counsel with other chiefs and 
decided to appeal to the Queen of England to 
take the islands under her protection ; and sub- 
sequently went so far as to ask for immediate 
annexation. 

The English proceeded very cautiously in the 
matter, and did not hasten to relieve the semi- 
savage monarch from his difficulties. 

Instead of a direct answer, the English, in 
1860, equipped a special expedition to inspect 



Money. 59 

the Fiji Islands, with the view to decide whether 
it was worth while to annex the islands and 
spend money to satisfy American creditors. 

Meanwhile the American Government con- 
tinued to insist upon being paid, and kept, as 
security, in practical ownership, some of the 
best points ; and as soon as it had made a care- 
ful estimate of the national wealth, it raised the 
tax to ninety thousand dollars, and threatened 
to raise it still more if Kakabo delayed payment. 

Then Kakabo, pressed from all sides and un- 
familiar with European methods of credit trans- 
actions, acted upon the suggestions of European 
colonists and tried to raise money from Mel- 
bourne merchants, at any rates and conditions, 
not hesitating to yield his kingdom to private 
parties. 

At Kakabo's instigation, then, a stock-com- 
pany was formed at Melbourne. This stock- 
company, which called itself the " Polynesian 
Association," formed contracts with the rulers 
of Fiji, stipulating for itself the most advan- 
tageous terms. Undertaking to pay the debt 
due to the American Government in instalments 



60 Money. 

at specified times, the Company, in consideration 
of this, received at first one hundred thousand 
and then two hundred thousand acres of the 
best land, chosen by itself, exemption from all 
taxes and duties, for an unlimited time, for its 
factories, operations, and colonies, and the exclu- 
sive right, for a long period, of maintaining 
banks of issue, with the privilege of the un- 
limited issue of notes. 

Since this contract, formed finally in 1868, in 
Fiji, there has sprung up, alongside of the local 
government with Kakabo at its head, another 
rule, a powerful commercial organization with 
immense landed estates on all the islands and 
decisive influence in the administration. 

Up to that time the Kakabo Government had 
contented itself, for the satisfaction of its needs, 
with the taxes paid in material products and a 
low tariff on foreign imports. Since the con- 
clusion of the treaty and the formation of the 
Polynesian Association, the financial conditions 
of the government have changed. A consider- 
able part of the best lands having passed into 
the ownership of the Association, the income 



Money. 61 

from the taxes diminished. On the other hand, 
the Association having, as we know, stipulated 
freedom of exportation and importation of all 
products, the revenue from the tariff duties 
also decreased. The natives — that is, ninety- 
nine per cent of the population — had never 
paid much in tariff duties, as they had not used 
any European goods except a few textile prod- 
ucts and metallic wares; so, in consequence of 
the exemption of the wealthiest Europeans from 
the payment of tariff duties, the revenue of 
Kakabo became miserably small, and it became 
necessary for him to arrange for an increase. 

Kakabo sought the advice of his white friends 
as to the best way of remedying the evil, and 
they suggested the introduction of the first 
direct tax into the country, and, in all probabil- 
ity, for his convenience, in the form of a money 
tribute. 

The tax was accordingly fixed in the form of 
an annual payment of one pound sterling for 
every male and four shillings for every female 
in the whole group of islands. 

As we have already stated, even at present, 



62 Money. 

the Fijians live under primitive economy and 
the system of barter. Very few natives have 
money ; their wealth consists entirely of differ- 
ent raw-produce and cattle, not of money. 

But the new tax made money a necessity at 
a certain date, and in an amount not insignifi- 
cant for the native. 

Heretofore the native had borne no individual 
burdens for the benefit of the government. 
Excepting personal services, all his taxes had 
been paid by the village or the Commune to 
which he belonged and from the common lands, 
which were the main source of his income. 

Hence he had but one way left to him, — 
apply for money to the white colonists, — that 
is, go to the dealers and planters who had what 
he wanted, money. 

To the first he had to sell his products at any 
price, as the tax-collector demanded that the 
money should be paid at a certain date, and he 
was even obliged to borrow money on his future 
products, of which the dealers naturally were 
not slow to take advantage, charging usurious 
rates. Or else, he had to go to the planter and 
sell him his labor-power, that is, turn laborer. 



Money. 63 

But wages, in consequence, probably, of the 
simultaneous and large supply of labor, proved 
very low ; not above, according to the report 
of the present administration, one shilling a 
week for an adult man, or two pounds and 
twelve shillings a year. Hence, merely to get 
money to pay his own tax, to say nothing of 
his family, the Fijian had to abandon his house, 
land, and sell himself to the planter at least for 
six months, often having to go very far, to 
another island, in search of employment, while 
he could not pa}' for his whole family, save by 
adding other means. 

The result of such a state of affairs must be 
plain to everybody. 

From his 150,000 subjects Kakabo could raise 
only six thousand pounds sterling, and this gave 
rise to a whole series of coercive measures and a 
vigorous extortion of taxes, — formerly unknown. 

The local administration, formerly conscien- 
tious, formed an alliance with the white set- 
tlers, who became the complete masters of the 
country. 

For failure to pay taxes the Fijians are tried 



64 Money. 

and condemned to imprisonment for a term of 
six months, at least, besides the payment of 
costs. The prison is represented by the plan- 
tation of the first white settler who offers to 
pay the tax and costs for the prisoner. In this 
way, the whites obtain an abundance of cheap 
labor, in any quantity desired. 

At first the duration of this forced labor was 
limited to six months; but subsequently bribed 
judges easily extended the term to eighteen 
months, often renewing the sentence at its 
expiration. 

Very speedily, in a few years, the whole 
aspect of the economic condition of the Fijians 
was completely changed. Entire districts were 
impoverished and depopulated. 

The entire male population, except the aged 
and infirm, worked for the white planters to 
obtain the money needed for the payment of 
the tax or to satisfy the judgment of the court. 

The women in Fiji do hardly any field work, 
and therefore, in the absence of the men, the 
households were neglected or utterly abandoned. 

In a few years half of the population of Fiji 
became the slaves of the white colonists. 



Money. 65 

To improve the condition, the Fijians again 
turned to England. 

A petition was gotten up asking for annex- 
ation to England, signed by the most famous 
chiefs and an immense number of others, and 
presented to the English consul. 

By this time England, thanks to her scientific 
expeditions, had succeeded, not only in explor- 
ing, but in measuring, the islands, and thus she 
was in a position to estimate duly the natural 
wealth of this beautiful corner of the globe. 
In consequence of this, the negotiations this 
time led to fruitful results, and, in 1874, to the 
great chagrin of the American planters, England 
officially assumed authority over the islands, 
making them part of her colonies. 

Kakabo died, and his heirs were granted small 
pensions. 

The government of the island was intrusted 
to Sir Robinson, the governor of New South 
Wales. 

In the first year of its annexation, Fiji had 
no independent administration, but was under 
the authority of Sir Robinson, who was repre- 
sented by an appointee of his. 



66 Money. 

In taking control over the islands, England 
assumed the difficult task of fulfilling the vari- . 
ous expectations entertained by the several ele- 
ments of the islands. The natives of course 
hoped primarily for the abolition of the hateful 
poll-tax; as to the white colonists, the American 
portion looked upon English rule with distrust, 
while the English portion anticipated from it 
every blessing, — for instance, the recognition of 
their sovereignty over the natives, the legaliza- 
tion of their titles to the lands seized from the 
latter, etc. 

The English administration proved itself, 
however, equal to the task ; and its first act was 
the definitive abolition of the poll-tax which 
had made slaves of the natives for the advan- 
tage of the few colonists. 

But Sir Robinson was confronted with a 
serious problem. 

It was essential to abolish the poll-tax, which 
was the cause of the appeal for annexation ; 
but at the same time, accordimg to the princi- 
ples of English colonial politics, the colonies 
must support themselves, — that is, must find 



Money. 67 

their own means of meeting the expenditures 
of the administration. Now, with the poll-tax 
abolished, the total of the revenues from the 
tariff duties did not exceed six thousand pounds ; 
while the administrative expenses amounted to 
seventy thousand pounds annually. 

Sir Robinson hit upon the idea of establishing 
a labor tax, — that is, a tax paid in labor upon 
government works. 

But this labor tax did not yield the seventy 
thousand pounds required for the maintenance 
of Sir Robinson and his assistants ; and the un- 
certainty lasted until the appointment of a new 
governor, Gordon, who saw the unwisdom of 
attempting to collect taxes in money before 
money was circulated in needful quantities in 
the islands, and decided to take the produce of 
the natives, and sell it himself. 

This tragic episode in the life of the Fijians 
is the best and plainest indication of the nature 
and role of money. 

Here everything has manifested itself: the 
first fundamental condition of enslavement, — 
threats, cannons, murder, and seizure of the 



68 Money. 

land, and the principal means, — money, which 
supplanted all other means. 

That which, in a historical sketch of the eco- 
nomic development of nations which present 
the complete development of all forms of money- 
rule, would be necessary through long centu- 
ries, we have here concentrated in a period of 
ten years. 

The drama begins with the sending, by the 
American government, of men-of-war with loaded 
cannons to the shores of the islands, whose 
natives it wants to subjugate. 

The pretext of this threatened invasion is a 
money matter ; but the beginning of the drama 
is to be found in this directing of the mouths 
of cannons against all the natives, — women, 
children, old people, and young men, innocent 
of any offence. A fact, the like of which we 
see everywhere in America, in China, in Central 
Asia. 

This is the beginning of the drama, " Your 
money or your life," repeated in the history of 
all conquests of all nations. 

Forty-five (then ninety) thousand dollars or 
a massacre. 



Money. 69 

But the ninety thousand are lacking: they 
are in the pockets of the Americans. 

So the second act of the drama begins : it is 
a postponement, the substitution for a bloody 
massacre, terrible and concentrated in a brief 
interval, of sufferings less perceptible, but more 
protracted. 

And the tribe, with its king, seek the means 
of saving themselves from massacre by enslav- 
ing themselves to money. 

They borrow money, and the forms of slavery 
are thereby fixed for them. 

This method at once begins to work like a 
disciplined army, and in five years all is done ; 
not only have the people lost their possession, 
the right to use their land, but they have lost 
their personal liberty, — -they are slaves. 

The third act commences. 

The condition becomes unbearable, and they 
hear rumors that it is possible to change mas- 
ters. Of emancipation from the slavery imposed 
by money there is no longer even a thought. 
And the tribe calls another master, to whom it 
subjects itself with a prayer to alleviate its 
situation. 



70 Money. 

The English come, see that the possession of 
the islands will enable them to maintain the 
numerous idlers among them, and the English 
government appropriates the island and the 
inhabitants ; but it does not make the inhabi- 
tants formal slaves, it does not appropriate the 
land for distribution among its officials. 

These old methods are now needless. 

What is needed is merely that a tribute be 
paid, a tribute sufficiently large to prevent the 
laboring subjects from emancipating themselves 
from slavery and to support a large number of 
idlers. 

The natives must pay seventy thousand 
pounds a year. This is the essential condition 
under which England consents to deliver the 
Fijians from their American masters, and at 
the same time the only condition requisite to 
insure their complete enslavement. 

But it is soon found that, in the state in which 
they are, the Fijians cannot raise seventy thou- 
sand pounds. This is too great a demand. The 
English modify their terms and agree to take a 
part of the tax in produce, with the under- 



Money. 71 

standing that the full tax shall be paid in cash 
as soon as money is sufficiently abundant in the 
islands. 

England acts, not as the first Company, which 
may be likened to the first invasion of wild con- 
querors, who want but to extort as much as 
possible and leave ; England acts like a more 
prudent enslaver, knowing that it is better not 
to kill the hen that lays the golden eggs. 

England at first loosens the reins, in order 
subsequently to draw them tight forever; to 
force the Fijians into that condition of financial 
slavery in which are all European civilized 
nations, and from which no prospect of deliver- 
ance is discernible. 

Money is a harmless means of exchange, but 
not when on the shores of the country are 
placed loaded cannons directed against the in- 
habitants. 

As soon as money is extorted under threats 
of violence, there is inevitably repeated the 
spectacle which we have witnessed on the Fiji 
Islands. It is, and has been, repeated every- 
where and always ; among the ancient tribes 



72 Money. 

and their princes and among modern nations 
and their governments. 

Men having the power to tyrannize over 
others will do so through levying such a money 
tribute from them as will force the coerced to 
become their slaves ; and, moreover, there will 
always occur what occurred between the Eng- 
lish and the Fijians, — namely, the tyrants in 
their demand for money will rather overstep 
than stop short of the limit at which payment 
becomes impossible without the coerced becom- 
ing absolute slaves. 

They will stop at the limit only if checked 
by a moral sentiment, and even a moral senti- 
ment will not avail if they are themselves in 
want. But governments will always overstep 
the limit, in the first place, because there are no 
moral sentiments recognized by governments, 
and, secondly, because, as we know, govern- 
ments are themselves forever in extreme need 
of money, which need is created by wars and 
the necessity of maintaining their accomplices. 

All governments are hopelessly in debt, and 
moreover, they could not, even if they would, 



Money. 73 

refrain from acting upon the rule expressed by 
a Russian statesman of the eighteenth century : 
— " We must shear the moujik, and not let his 
wool grow." 

All governments are burdened with inextin- 
guishable debts, and, as a rule, not to speak of 
accidental decreases in America and England, 
the debt grows every year in a terrible progres- 
sion. In the same way do the budgets grow, — 
that is, the necessity of warring with other 
tyrants, and distributing money and land gifts 
among the subordinate tyrants ; and therefore, 
also, does agricultural rent increase. 

Wages do not increase, not, however, in con- 
sequence of the working of the law of rent, 
but because there is the forcibly-collected tax, 
imposed with the view of taking away every- 
thing that can possibly be spared, so as to neces- 
sitate the selling of one's labor-power, since the 
use of this last is precisely the purpose for 
which the tax is levied in the first instance. 
While the utilization of this labor is only pos- 
sible if more money is demanded, on the whole, 
than the laborers can give without depriving 
themselves of the means of livelihood. 



74 Money. 

The increase of wages would remove the 
possibility of enslavement, and therefore, as 
long as compulsion exists, wages cannot rise. 

And this simple and easily comprehended 
treatment of some men lyy others, economists 
call "the iron law;" while the weapon by which 
this treatment is achieved they call a Harmless 
Means of Exchange. 

Money, they say, that harmless means of ex- 
change, is indispensable to men in their mutual 
relations. 

Why, then, has there been, and could be, 
no money, in the proper sense, among nations 
who had no money taxes to pay to aggressors, 
while there has always been and will be, as 
among the Fijians, the Kirgises, the Africans, 
the Phoenicians, and among peoples free from 
money taxes generally, direct exchange of goods 
for goods, or accidental measures of value, like 
sheep, fur, hides, shells ? 

Money in the proper sense comes into vogue 
among people only when they are all forcibly 
made to pay money. Then only does money 
become indispensable to each as the means to 



Money. 75 

secure immunity from violence ; then only does 
money receive a constant exchange value. 

And not that which is convenient for ex- 
change receives exchange value, but that which 
is demanded by government : if the govern- 
ment demands gold, gold will receive the ex- 
change value ; if colored stones are demanded, 
colored stones will have that value. 

If this is not true, then why has it always 
been a government prerogative to issue this 
medium of exchange? 

A people, say the Fijians, have determined 
upon a new medium of exchange. Well, leave 
them in peace to exchange in any manner they 
choose, and do not interfere with their ex- 
changes, you who have the power. But you 
coin the tokens, prohibiting others from coin- 
ing similar ones ; or else, as in Russia, you 
print pieces of paper, put upon them the images 
of czars, add peculiar signatures, and provide 
severe punishments for counterfeiters ; then you 
distribute them among your assistants, and de- 
mand, under the name of taxes and duties, 
from the laborers, so many of such coins or 



76 Money. 

papers that the laborer is obliged to sell his 
labor in order to obtain these coins or papers. 
And you assure us that this money is necessary 
as a medium of exchange. 

Here are all men free ; no one oppresses any- 
body else or keeps him in subjection ; no 
sooner does money appear in the society than 
there is an Iron Law, thanks to which rent 
rises while wages decrease to the minimum. 

The fact that half, or more than half, of the 
Russian peasants sell themselves to landed pro- 
prietors and manufacturers, to get means to 
pay the direct and indirect taxes of all kinds, 
by no means signifies (as seems obvious) that 
the compulsory levying of money taxes for the 
benefit of the government and its landlord-ac- 
complices, compels the laborers to become the 
slaves of those who levy the taxes ; it signifies 
that these are : money, a means of exchange, 
and an iron law. 

Before the serfs were emancipated, I could 
force Vanka to do any kind of a job; and if 
Vanka refused I sent him to the local judge, 
who whipped him till he became tractable. 



Money. 77 

At the same time, if I forced Vanka to over- 
work himself, if I did not give him land and 
food, the matter was reported to the authorities, 
and I had to answer the charge. 

Now the people are free ; but I can force 
Vanka and Petrushka and Sidorka to do any 
kind of a job for me, and if one refuses, I give 
him no money to pay his taxes, and they will 
whip him — till he submits ; moreover, I can 
force Germans, Frenchmen, Chinese to work 
for me, punishing them for disobedience by 
withholding the money which they need to 
lease land or buy bread, since they have neither 
land nor bread; and if I force them to work 
without food, above their strength, if I kill 
them with work, nobody will say a word to 
me ; and if, in addition, I am well read in 
politico-economic books, I may be firmly as- 
sured that all men are free, and that money 
does not conduce to slavery. 

Our moujiks have long known that with the 
rouble it is possible to deal more painful blows 
than with the stick; only the political econo- 
mist cannot see it. 



78 Money. 

To say to-day that money does not produce 
slavery is as correct as it was correct, fifty years 
since, to say that serfdom did not produce 
slavery. 

The political economists say that, notwith- 
standing that by virtue of the possession of 
money one man may enslave another, money is 
a harmless means of exchange. 

Why was it not said, half a century since, 
that, notwithstanding that serfdom enabled 
some men to tyrannize over others, serfdom 
was not a means of enslaving men, but a 
harmless means of rendering mutual services? 
Some contribute their rough labor, the others 
take upon themselves the care for the plrysical 
and mental welfare of the serfs and the organi- 
zation of labor. 

However, this, I think, was really maintained 
by some. 

If this so-called science, political economy, 
did not busy itself with that with which all 
juridical sciences are concerned, — with furnish- 
ing an apology for violence, — it could not fail 



Money. 79 

to overlook the strange phenomenon that the 
distribution of wealth and the exploitation of 
some men by others are dependent upon money, 
and that only by means of money do some peo- 
ple command the labor of others nowadays, — 
that is, enslave them. 

I repeat, a man who has money may purchase 
all the bread and let others starve, or make 
them his slaves for the sake of the bread. 

And this is what occurs right before our eyes 
on an immense scale. 

It would seem as if it was needful to search 
for the connection between slavery and money ; 
but science with perfect assurance affirms that 
money has no connection wdiatever with the 
enslavement of men. 

Science says : 

" Money is merchandise like all other mer- 
chandise, and its value is measured by the cost 
of production ; the difference being only in this, 
— that the merchandise has been selected as a 
medium of exchange, in consequence of its fit- 
ness for fixing values, accumulation of savings, 
and payments." 



80 Money. 

One man has manufactured shoes, another 
has raised grain, a third has raised sheep, and 
that they may conveniently make exchanges, 
they have introduced money, which represents a 
certain quantity of labor, and through this me- 
dium soles are exchanged for a leg of mutton 
or ten pounds of flour. 

The devotees of that alleged science are very 
fond of picturing to themselves such a state of 
affairs, but the world has really never known it. 

So it is with that other imaginary picture of 
primitive, pure, and perfect society, which old 
philosophers loved to draw. v 

But such a condition never existed. 

In all human societies in which money, as 
money, existed, there invariably was oppression 
of the weak and unarmed by the strong and 
armed ; and where there has been compulsion, 
money — tokens of value, whether cattle, furs, 
hides, or metals — inevitably lost this attribute 
of measuring values and became simply a means 
of delivery from compulsion. 

Doubtless money has those harmless proper- 
ties which science enumerates ; but it has them 



Money. 81 

in reality only in such a society as is free from 
tyranny of one man over another, — in an ideal 
society ; but in such a society money, as a gen- 
eral measure of values, would not exist at all, 
there having been no money in any of those 
societies that were not subjected to govern- 
mental tyranny. 

In all communities known to us, on the other 
hand, that have money, it acquires the signifi- 
cance of a medium of exchange only because it 
serves as the means of tyranny ; and .its main 
function is not the serving as a medium of ex- 
change, but the serving as a means of com- 
pulsion, 

Where violence reigns, money cannot serve 
as a correct medium of exchange, since it can- 
not be a measure of value. 

And it cannot be a measure of value because 
there can be no measure in a community in 
which one man is enabled to deprive another of 
the product of his labor. 

If horses and cows raised by their owners are 
brought to market where they have to compete 
with horses and cows stolen from their owners 



82 Money. 

and sold by the robbers, it is evident that the 
price of horses and cows in that market will not 
be determined by the labor expended in raising 
the animals ; and the prices of all other mer- 
chandise will undergo a change corresponding 
to that in the price of horses and cows ; and 
money will no longer determine the value of 
these wares. Besides, if it is possible to acquire 
by force a horse, a cow, or a house, it is equally 
possible to acquire money in the same way, and 
all other things with the money so acquired. 
Now if money itself is acquired by force and ex- 
pended in the purchase of commodities, then it 
totally ceases to have even the semblance of a 
medium of exchange. 

The highwayman who, having committed 
robbery, buys with the money labor products, 
does not make any exchange ; he simply gets 
what he wants by means of the money. 

Even if there existed that imaginary, impos- 
sible society in which, in the absence of gov- 
ernmental compulsion, money — silver or gold 
— served as a measure of value and medium of 
exchange, this function of money would totally 



Money. 83 

disappear as soon as violence made its appear- 
ance. 

An aggressor introduces himself into a so- 
ciety in the form of a conqueror. The aggres- 
sor, we will suppose, seizes cows, horses, cloth- 
ing, and the houses of the inhabitants, but it 
is inconvenient for him to retain these things 
in his possession, and it naturally occurs to 
him to rob the people of that which represents 
among them every kind of value and is ex- 
changeable for any product, — money. And 
straightway the function of money as a meas- 
ure of value ceases to exist in that society, 
because the measure of value of commodities 
will always depend on the arbitrary conduct 
of the aggressor. 

That commodity which the aggressor will 
need most and for which he will give the most 
money will acquire a high value, and con- 
versely. 

So, then, in a community subjected to violence 
money at once acquires the means of aggres- 
sion in the hands of the aggressor, retaining its 
significance as a medium of exchange for the 



84 Money. 

invaded only to the extent, and in the respect, 
which may be convenient for the aggressor. 

Let us contemplate the matter in a small 
circle. 

The serfs furnish to the landed proprietor 
linen, hens, sheep, and daily labor. Then the 
landlord substitutes a money tax for the prod- 
uce and fixes the prices of the products. He 
who has no linen, hens, sheep, and who can 
spare no labor power, may pay a certain sum 
of money. 

It is evident that among the serfs of this 
landlord the price of the products will always 
depend on the fiat of the latter. The proprie- 
tor uses the products gathered, and some he 
wants more, some less, and according to this 
he fixes the prices of the goods lower or higher. 

It is further evident that the fiat or necessity 
of the proprietor will fix the prices of the prod- 
ucts even in so far as they are distributed 
among the subjects themselves. 

If the proprietor wants bread, he will fix a 
high money tax for the privilege of paying him 
in other things, while those who cannot fur- 



Money. 85 

nish those things which he does not want, — 
linen, cattle, personal services, — will have to 
pay little. Therefore those who have no bread 
to give will sell their labor or their linen and 
cattle, in order to buy bread for the proprietor. 

If the proprietor decides to substitute a 
money tax for all payments, the price of prod- 
ucts, again, will not depend on the quantity of 
labor they embody, but, first, on the quantity 
of money demanded by the proprietor, and, 
secondly, on the kind of the peasants' products 
which he wants most and for which conse- 
quently he pays more money. 

The levying of a money tax by the proprie- 
tor would fail to affect the prices of products 
among the peasants only if, in the first place, 
the peasants lived apart from other people and 
had no other relations than with their proprie- 
tor and with one another, and, in the second 
place, if the proprietor used the money for the 
purchase of goods outside of his village, not in- 
side. Only under these two conditions would 
the value of commodities, though nominally 
changing, remain relatively normal, and money 



86 Money. 

perform the function of a measure of value and 
medium of exchange ; but if the peasants have 
economic relations with their neighbors, then, 
in the first place, the greater or smaller demand 
for money by the proprietor will determine the 
higher or lower value of their products in their 
dealings with the neighbors. If less money is 
demanded from their neighbors than from them- 
selves, then their products will sell at lower 
prices than those of the neighbors ; and con- 
versely. 

Again, the levying of a money tax by the 
proprietor would not affect the values of his 
peasants' products, if with the money collected 
by him he does not buy in his own village. If 
he does, then, obviously, the relations between 
the prices of the wares in the mutual dealing of 
the peasants will constantly change, the changes 
being determined by his demand for this or that 
product. 

Suppose that one proprietor has imposed 
upon his peasants a very high tax, while a low 
one has been imposed by his neighbor ; mani- 
festly, in the estate of the former all products 



Money. 87 

will be cheaper than on the estate of the latter, 
and the prices in either estate will depend on 
the increase or decrease of the tax. 

Such is one effect of force on prices. 

Another effect, flowing from the first, will be 
exhibited in the relative Tallies of the products. 
' Suppose that one proprietor is fond of horses, 
and pays high prices for them, while another 
likes certain handkerchiefs, and buys them at 
high prices. Manifestly, on the estates of these 
proprietors horses and handkerchiefs will be 
dear, and the prices of these will not be nor- 
mally related to the prices of cows and bread. 
To-morrow the lover of handkerchiefs dies, his 
heir being a lover of hens, and the price of 
handkerchiefs falls, while that of hens rises. 

In every society where oppression of man by 
man exists, the function of money as a measure 
of values at once becomes dependent on the 
fiat of the aggressor, and its function as a 
medium of exchange is superseded by another 
function, — that of serving as the most conven- 
ient means of profiting by the labor of others. 

The oppressor does not need the money for 



88 Money. 

purposes of exchange, or to fix upon a measure 
of values, — he regulates value himself, — but 
simply as a convenient weapon of oppression, 
since money is easily preserved and enables one 
to hold in subjection the largest number of 
people. 

To take away all the cattle, in order to have 
always on hand as many cows, sheep, horses, as 
may be needed, is inconvenient, because they 
have to be fed and cared for; similarly, grain 
gets spoiled; and so with labor: sometimes a 
thousand workers are needed, sometimes none. 

Money, when demanded from those who have 
not any, delivers one from all these inconven- 
iences, and enables the aggressor to have always 
what he needs, which is all that he cares about. 

Besides, the aggressor also needs money in 
order to extend his right of profiting by another's 
labor over all who are in want of money, and 
not limited to a certain number of people. 

When there was no money, each proprietor 
could only utilize the labor of his own peasants; 
but when two have agreed to have the pay- 
ments made in money, which the peasants did 



Money, 89 

not possess, each of them could use indiscrimi- 
nately any and all the forces on the two estates. 

Hence the oppressor finds it more convenient 
to demand money payment from all whose labor 
he claims, and he only wants the money for its 
virtue to command labor. 

As to the oppressed, to him who is robbed of 
his labor, he does not need any money, either 
for exchange — since he can exchange without 
money, as all the people without governments 
have exchanged — or for fixing the measure of 
values — since this is fixed without his inter- 
vention — or for saving — since he who is robbed 
of the products of his labor cannot save — or 
for payments, since the oppressed always gives 
more than he receives, and even when he gets 
anything, he is given goods rather than money, 
as the laborers who get the equivalent of their 
wages in articles from their master's store, or 
even as those who exchange their wages for the 
necessaries of life in ;; free" stores. 

He is commanded to give money, and is told 
that, if he does not pay, he will not be given 
land, bread, or that his cow, his house will be 



90 Money. 

taken away, and he will be put to work or im- 
prisoned. He can escape this only by selling 
the products of his labor, his labor-power, or the 
labor of his children. But these products, or 
his labor, he is obliged to sell at the rates fixed, 
not by normal exchange, but by that power 
which demands the tribute from him. 

And under these influences of tribute or taxes 
upon values, always and everywhere present, — 
among landed proprietors and their peasants, on 
a small scale ; in governments, on a large scale, 
— under these conditions, which make the causes 
of the fluctuations of values as plain as the 
cause of the movement of dancing dolls to him 
who stands behind the scenes, — under these 
conditions, to speak of money as merely a 
medium of exchange and measure of values, is, 
to say the least, wonderful ! 



Every kind of oppression of man by man rests 
on the possibility which a man has of taking 
another's life and, by keeping a threatening 
attitude, compelling his obedience. 

One may assert without fear of being in error 



Money. 91 

that, wherever there is subjection of man, — that 
is, the doing by one, against his will, in accord- 
ance with another's wishes, certain personally 
undesired acts, — the cause of it is force having 
for its basis the threat of taking life. 

Where a man surrenders the whole of his 
labor to another, goes without sufficient nourish- 
ment, consigns his little children to hard labor, 
and devotes his whole life to repugnant and (to 
him) useless labor, — as is done before our own 
eyes in our own world (called civilized by us 
because we live in it), — it may with certainty 
be said that he does all this because, for non- 
fulfilment, he is threatened with the loss of life. 

Therefore, in our cultured world, where the 
majority of men, under terrible privations, per- 
form hateful and (to them) useless labor, — the 
majority of men are in a state of slavery, founded 
on the threat of loss of life. 

In what, then, does this slavery manifest it- 
self, and how is the threat expressed? 

In ancient times the method of enslavement 
and the threat of taking life were plain enough : 
the primitive method of enslaving men consisted 
of the direct threat of death by the sword. 



92 Money. 

The armed said to the unarmed : 

" I can kill you, as you saw I did with your 
brother; but I do not wish to do it; I will 
spare you, primarily because both for me and 
for you it will be more profitable if you will 
consent to work for me instead of being killed. 
So do everything I command you ; if you refuse, 
I kill you." 

And the unarmed surrendered to the armed 
and did all that he commanded. 

The unarmed worked, the armed threatened. 

This was that personal slavery which earty 
appears among all nations and which is now 
still to be met with among savage nations. 

This method of enslaving men is the first to 
come into vogue, but as life grows complex, 
this method is modified. Under complex con- 
ditions of life this method presents great incon- 
veniences for the oppressor. In order to profit 
by the labor of the weak, the oppressor must 
feed and clothe them, — that is, take such care 
of them as might make them fit for work, — 
and this limits the number of the enslaved ; 
moreover, this method forces the oppressor to 



Money. 93 

perpetually guard the enslaved in a threatening 
attitude. 

And so a new form of subjection is evolved. 

Five thousand years since, as the Bible tells 
us, was invented, by Joseph the handsome, that 
more convenient and general method of enslav- 
ing men. 

The method is the same which is to-day em- 
ployed in taming horses and wild animals in 
menageries. 

The method is — hunger: 

Here is the Biblical description of this inven- 
tion. 

Gen., Chap. 41, v. 48: "And he gathered up 
all the food of the seven years, which were in 
the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the 
cities : the food of the field, which was round 
about every city, laid he up in the same. 

" 49. And Joseph gathered corn as the sand 
of the sea, very much, until he left numbering ; 
for it was without number. . . . 

"53. And the seven years of plenteousness, 
that was in the land of Egypt, were ended. 

"54. And the seven years of dearth began 



94 Money. 

to come, according as Joseph had said : and the 
dearth was in all lands ; but in all the land of 
Egypt there was bread. 

"55. And when all the land of Egypt was 
famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread : 
and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go 
unto Joseph ; what he saith to you, do. 

" 56. And the famine was over all the face of 
the earth: and Joseph opened all the store- 
houses, and sold unto the Egyptians ; and the 
famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. % 

" 57. And all countries came into Egypt to 
Joseph for to buy corn ; because that the fam- 
ine was so sore in all lands." 

Joseph, enjoying the right of the original 
method of enslaving men by the threat of the 
sword, gathered grain in the years of plenty, 
anticipating bad years, which generally follow 
the good, — as all people know even without 
Pharaoh's dream, — and by this means, by 
hunger, he enslaved in the surest and most 
convenient way for Pharaoh the Egyptians as 
well as the inhabitants of neighboring coun- 
tries. As goon as the people began to feel 



Money. 95 

hunger, he manipulated matters so as to per- 
manently enslave the people by means of 
hunger. 

In the 47th chapter this is described as fol- 
lows : 

"13. And there was no bread in all the 
land; for the famine was very sore, so that 
the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan 
fainted by reason of the famine. 

" 14. And Joseph gathered up all the money 
that was found in the land of Egypt, and in 
the land of Canaan, for the corn which they 
bought: and Joseph brought the money into 
Pharaoh's house. 

"15. And when money failed in the land 
of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the 
Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said: Give 
us bread; for why should we die in thy pres- 
ence? for the money faileth. 

" 16. And Joseph said, Give your cattle, and 
I will give you for your cattle, if money 
fail. 

"17. And they brought their cattle unto 
Joseph : and Joseph gave them bread in ex- 



96 . Money. 

change for horses, and for the flocks, and for 
the cattle of the herds, and for the acres; and 
he fed them with bread for all their cattle 
for that year. 

" 18. When that year was ended, they came 
unto him the second year, and said unto him, 
We will not hide it from my lord, how that 
our money is spent; my lord also hath our 
herds of cattle ; there is not aught left in the 
sight of my lord, but our bodies and our lands. 

"19. Wherefore shall we die before "thine 
eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our 
land for bread, and Ave and our land will be 
servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed that 
we may live and not die, that the land be not 
desolate. . 

"20. And Joseph bought all the land of 
Egypt for Pharaoh ; for the Egyptians sold 
every man his field, because the famine pre- 
vailed over them: so the land became Pha- 
raoh's. 

"21. And as for the people, he removed 
them to cities from one end of the borders of 
Egypt even to the other end thereof. 



Money. 97 

" 22. Only the land of the priests bought he 
not ; for the priests had a portion assigned 
them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion 
which Pharaoh gave them: Avherefore they 
sold not their lands. 

" 23. Then Joseph said unto the people, Be- 
hold, I have bought you this day and your 
land for Pharaoh : lo, here is seed for j^ou, and 
ye shall sow the land. 

" 24. And it shall come to. pass in the in- 
crease, that 3^e shall give the fifth part unto 
Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, 
for seed of the field, and for your food, and 
for them of your households, and for food for 
your little ones. 

" 25. And they say : Thou hast saved our 
lives : let us find grace in the sight of my 
lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants. 

" 26. And Joseph made it a law over the 
land of Egypt unto this daj^, that Pharaoh 
should have the fifth part; except the land of 
the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's." 

Formerly, in order to profit by the labor of 
men, Pharaoh had to force them to work for 



98 Money. 

him. Now, having the land and the stored-up 
grain, he has only to watch the store-houses, 
and hunger will compel them to work for him. 
The land is all his, and the stored-up food (the 
part taken from the people) is his ; instead 
of driving each person singly to work by the 
sword, he only needs to guard the stores to 
make the people his slaves — not by the sword, 
but by hunger. In a 3 r ear of famine all may 
be caused to die of starvation by Pharaoh, and 
in better season all those may be caused to die 
of starvation whom accidental misfortunes pre- 
vent from gathering their own store. 

Thus is fixed the second method of enslaving 
men, not by the sword, that is, by the strong 
driving, under threat of inflicting death, the 
weak to work, but by the stronger gathering 
up all the products and guarding them, thus 
compelling the weaker to sell himself for bread. 

Joseph says to the hungry : 

" I can cause you to die of starvation, since 
I have all the grain, but I spare you on condi- 
tion that, for the bread I give j^ou, you will 
do all that I order you." 



Money, 99 

For the first method of subjugation, the 
stronger needs warriors only, to constantly go 
about among the inhabitants and, under threats 
of death, force them to execute the stronger's 
will. In the first form, the ruler has to divide 
only with his warriors. Under the second 
method, he needs, besides warriors to guard 
the land and stores, another kind of assistants, 
great and small Josephs, managers and dis- 
tributers of the grain. The ruler has to divide 
with these also, and give Joseph fine clothes, 
a gold ring, servants, food, and silver to his 
brothers and relatives. Furthermore, from the 
nature of things, not alone the managers and 
their relatives, but all private possessors of 
stores, become shareholders of power under 
the second method. 

As in the first form, founded on brute force, 
every man having weapons becomes a partner in 
the aggression, so in the second form, founded 
on hunger, every one having a store shares in 
the aggression and becomes a ruler. 

The superiority of this method over the first, 
from the point of view of the aggressor, chiefly 



100 Money. 

consists in the circumstance that he is no longer 
obliged to exert himself to compel the laborers' 
obedience, and that the laborers come volunta- 
rily and sell themselves to him ; and, in the 
second place, it is superior because a smaller 
number of people are able to escape from his 
oppression. 

The disadvantage of it for the oppressor lies 
in the necessity to divide with a larger number 
of men. 

The advantage of this form for the oppressed 
is in the circumstance that they are no longer 
subjected to brutal violence, and that they con- 
ceive, and always may hope for, a possibility 
of becoming under fortunate circumstances op- 
pressors in their turn. 

This new method of subjugation generally 
comes into vogue together with the old one, 
and the ruler limits or extends one or the other 
according to the needs of the occasion. 

But this method, too, fails to completely 
satisfy the stronger's wish to take away the 
largest possible quantity of products from the 
largest possible number of laborers and to en- 



Money, 101 

slave the largest possible number of men ; and 
it also fails to correspond to the greater com- 
plexity of the conditions of life ; and still an- 
other method is evolved. 

This new and third method is that of taxa- 
tion. 

Like the second, it is based on hunger, but 
to the method of enslaving men by depriving 
them of bread is added the taking away of other 
necessaries. The stronger fixes the tribute at 
such a quantity of money-tokens, which are in his 
own possession all the while, as makes it neces- 
sary to sell, in order to obtain them, not only 
more, than the fifth part of their grain which 
Joseph demanded, but other things of prime 
necessity, such as meat, hides, wool, textures, 
coal, and even buildings ; and thus the aggres- 
sor holds them always in subjection, not only 
through the fear of hunger, but through the 
fear of cold, and all other kinds of privations. 

So the third form of slavery is fixed, under 
which the strong says to the weak: 

"I can do with each of you whatever I 
please ; I can kill you by taking away the land 



102 Money. 

which feeds you ; I can, with the money-tokens 
which you are obliged to furnish me, buy 
all the bread which you consume and sell it 
to strangers, and cause you to starve ; I can 
take away everything you possess, the cattle, 
the houses, the clothing. But this is incon- 
venient and unpleasant to me, and therefore I 
shall allow you to dispose of your labor and 
products as you like; you shall only have to 
pay me so many money-tokens, which I shall 
fix either in the form of a poll-tax, or in the 
form of a land-tax, or a tax in proportion to the 
quantity of things you consume, or one on cloth- 
ing, or on buildings. Give me these tokens, 
and you may arrange your mutual dealings as 
you please ; but know that I shall not defend 
or protect widows, orphans, sick, aged, or vic- 
tims of accident; I shall only maintain the 
proper circulation of these money-tokens. Him 
will I defend, and he will be right in my eyes, 
who shall accurately give me the stipulated 
quantity of these tokens. How they are ac- 
quired, — is a matter which does not concern 
me." 



Money. 103 

And the strong pays out these tokens exclu- 
sively in the shape of receipts certifying the 
fulfilment of his exactions. 

The second form of subjugation consisted in 
this : — that Pharaoh, having taken the fifth 
part of the crop and storing up the grain, could, 
in addition to his power of personally enslaving 
men by his sword, exercise, together with his 
assistants, authority over the laborers in bad 
seasons and over some of them in times of ac- 
cidental misfortune. 

The third form consists in this : — that Pha- 
raoh demands of the laborers more money than 
the fifth part of the grain formerly taken costs, 
and he and his accomplices get a new means of 
ruling over the laborers, not merely in time 
of famine and accidental misfortunes, but at all 
times. 

Under the second form enough grain is left 
to the laborers to enable them to endure small 
failures of crops and occasional misfortunes ; 
under the third, when the demand is larger, all 
the grain is taken away and all other necessa- 
ries accumulated, and, at the least failure, the 



104 Money. 

laborer, having neither grain nor other products 
that he could exchange for grain, makes himself 
the slave of him who has money. 

For the first form the ruler only needs war- 
riors, with whom he divides ; for the second, 
he must have, besides guardians of the land 
and the grain-stores, collectors and distributers ; 
under the third form, he cannot .any longer own 
all the lands, but must have, besides warriors 
to guard the land and the wealth, landowners 
and tax-collectors, as well as tax-assessors and 
supervisors, customs officials, coin-makers, and 
treasury officials. 

The organization of the third system is much 
more complex than that of the second; under 
the second, the gathering of products may be 
rented out, as was done in ancient times and 
as is done to-day in Turkey. While the impo- 
sition of money-taxes requires a complicated 
administrative body to see that the people or 
the taxed activities do not evade the taxes. 
Hence, under the third form, the ruler must 
divide with a still larger number than under 
the second. Besides, from the nature of things, 



Money. 105 

under this form all who possess money, whether 
belonging to his own or another country, par- 
ticipate in the exploitation. 

The advantage of this form over the first 
and second are as follows : 

In the first place, under it a greater quantity 
of products may be taken and in a more con- 
venient way. since a money-tax is like a screw 
and may be turned down to the last point at 
which the hen which lays the golden eggs can 
subsist ; and it is not necessary to wait for a 
bad year, as under Joseph, since the bad year 
is made everlasting. 

In the next place, under this form, the op- 
pression is extended over all who formerly 
escaped, who, being landless, gave only a part 
of their labor for grain, and who are now 
obliged, in addition to that part, to give an- 
other part of their labor in taxes. 

The disadvantage of the form for the op- 
pressor is in the necessity to divide with a large 
number of people, — not only with his imme- 
diate assistants, but with all those private pro- 
prietors who usually appear under that form, as 



106 Money. 

well as with all those men, native and foreign, 
who possess the money-tokens demanded of the 
laborer. 

For the oppressed, this system is in one re- 
spect more advantageous than the second : he 
is allowed a still larger amount of personal 
independence ; he can live where he pleases ; 
do what he pleases; he can sow or not, as he 
likes ; he is not obliged to render any account 
of his work, and, if he has money, he can re- 
gard himself as perfectly free and always hope 
to attain, at least for a time, provided he gets 
an extra quantity of money or land, not only 
the position of an independent man, but of an 
oppressor of others. 

His disadvantage lies in the fact that, on the 
whole, under the third form, the condition of 
the oppressed is a much more difficult one, and 
he is deprived of a greater part of his products, 
since the number of men exploiting the labor 
of others increases under it, and the burden of 
their maintenance falls upon a smaller number. 

This third form of oppression is also very 
old and comes into vogue together with the 
first two, not entirely excluding them. 



Money. 107 

These three methods of enslaving men have 
never ceased to exist. 

They may all be compared to screws which 
press clown the board placed upon the laborers. 

The principal, central screw, without which 
the others would not work at all, — the screw 
which is driven in wholly and never loosened, 
is that of personal slavery, — the enslavement 
of men by others by means of threats of death 
by the sword. 

The second screw, which is turned in after 
the first, is the enslavement of men through the 
alienation of land and stores of products, the 
alienation being effected by the threat of death. 

While the third screw is the enslavement of 
men through the demand of money-tokens which 
they lack, also effected by the threat of loss of 
life. 

All the screws are turned in, and only when 
one is made firmer is another loosened a little. 

For the complete enslavement of the laborer, 
the three screws, the three methods, are all 
indispensable ; and in our society the three 
methods are always in use, the three screws 
are always in operation. 



108 Money. 

The first method of enslaving men by per- 
sonal violence and the threat of death by the 
sword has never been dispensed with and will 
not cease to be resorted to as long as any kind 
of enslavement of man by man remains, since 
upon it rests every kind of slavery. 

We are all innocently persuaded that per- 
sonal slavery is abolished in our civilized so- 
ciety, that its last vestiges are totally effaced 
in America and Russia, and that to-day only 
the barbarians retain slavery. 

We lose sight of one trifling circumstance — 
of the existence of hundreds of millions of 
soldiers in the standing armies without which 
not a single government is found, and with the 
disappearance of which would collapse the 
whole economic fabric of every government. 

What, then, are these millions of soldiers, if 
not the personal slaves of those that rule over 
them ? 

Are not these men forced to fulfil the wishes 
of their masters under threat of torture and 
death, — threats so often carried into execution ? 
The only difference is that the subjection of 



Money. 109 

these slaves is called, not slavery, but disci- 
pline, and that, whereas the slaves were slaves 
from birth to death, these are slaves during a 
more or less limited period called the period of 
their service. 

Xot only is personal slavery not abolished in 
our civilized societies, but, with the introduc- 
tion of general military service, it has been 
strengthened of late. It remains as it has ever 
been, only slightly modified. 

And it cannot but remain; for, as long as 
there will be enslavement of man b} r man, this 
personal slavery will exist, this slavery which, 
by the threat of the sword, maintains the en- 
slavement by means- of land monopoly and 
taxes. 

But is not, perhaps, the army needed, as it is 
said, for the defence and glory of the father- 
land? 

Well, this usefulness of the army is mo*e 
than questionable, since we see how frequently, 
after unsuccessful wars, it serves to enslave and 
dishonor the fatherland ; while its usefulness is 
entirely unquestionable in the matter of up- 



110 Money. 

holding slavery through land monopoly and 
taxes. 

Let the Irish or Russian peasants secure pos- 
session of the lands of the proprietors, and the 
soldiers will come and dispossess them again. 

Let a distillery or brewery be erected and 
excise duties fail to be paid, and the soldiers 
will come and shut it up. 

Let them refuse to pay taxes, and the same 
will occur. 

The second screw is the enslavement of men 
by means of taking away their land, that is, 
their food. 

This method of enslavement has also always 
existed wherever men have been held in sub- 
jection ; and no matter what changes of form 
it undergoes, it exists everywhere. 

In some cases the land all belongs to the 
emperor, as in Turkey, while the tenth part of 
the crops is appropriated by the crown ; in some 
cases only a portion of the land is thus owned 
and the taxes are collected from its products; 
in some cases, all the land belongs to a small 
number of persons and taxes are paid for its 



Money, ' 111 

use, as in England ; in some cases, a larger or 
smaller part belongs to large proprietors, as in 
Russia, Germany, and France. 

But where slavery exists there goes with it 
the appropriation of the land by the enslaver. 

The screw of this form of slavery is tight- 
ened or loosened according to the degree of 
tightness in which the other screws are held. 
Thus, in Russia, when the personal slavery was 
extended over the majority of laborers, the 
slavery by land monopoly was a superfluity : 
and the screw of personal slavery was loosened 
in Russia only when the land and taxation 
screws had been tightened. They had arbitra- 
rily made all members of respective communi- 
ties, made emigration difficult, and had appro- 
priated the land or divided it among private 
individuals, and then they — gave the peasants 
freedom ! 

In England, for example, enslavement through 
land monopoly is the predominating form, and 
the issue of the naturalization of land means 
simply that the screAv of taxation is to be 
tightened and the land-slavery screw loosened. 



112 Money. 

The third method of enslavement by means 
of taxes, tribute, has also always existed; and 
in our time, with the extension of similar 
monej^-tokens in different governments and the 
strengthening of governmental authority, it has 
become peculiarly strong : it has in fact so 
developed that it ever tends to supplant the 
second method, that of land slavery. 

We have, in Russia, within our own recollec- 
tion, passed through two changes in the form 
of slavery. When the serfs were liberated and 
the proprietors left in possession of a large part 
of the land, the latter feared that their power 
over the former would vanish; but, as experi- 
ence has now shown, they simply had to let go 
the old chain of personal slavery, and take hold 
of another, — the land-monopoly chain. The 
peasant lacked bread to feed himself, while the 
proprietor had the land and the stores of prod- 
ucts ; hence the peasant remained the same 
slave. The next transformation was when the 
government tightened the screw of taxation 
and the majority of laborers were compelled to 
sell themselves to the proprietors and manu- 



Money. 113 

facturers. This new form is holding the people 
still tighter, so that nine-tenths of the Russian 
laboring population work for the landed pro- 
prietors and manufacturers because they are 
driven to it by the demand of the government 
for land and other taxes. This is so obvious 
that, were the government to refrain for one 
year from demanding direct, indirect, and land 
taxes, all the work on the landlord's fields and 
in the factories would stop entirely. Nine- 
tenths of the Russian people hire themselves 
out at the time taxes are wanted and solely on 
account of the taxes. 

The three methods of enslaving men have 
always existed and exist to-day ; but people are 
apt to overlook them the moment a new excuse 
for them is provided ; and, the strangest thing 
of all is that just that method upon which 
to-day everything is rested, which sustains all, 
— is not noticed at all. 

When in the ancient world the entire eco- 
homic fabric rested on personal slavery, the 
greatest minds could not see it. 

To Xenophon, and Plato, and Aristotle, and 



114 Money. 

the Romans it seemed that things could not be 
different, and that slavery was the inevitable 
and natural result of wars, without which, in 
turn, humanity was inconceivable. 

Similarly, in the Middle Ages, and until very 
recently, people could not perceive the signifi- 
cance of landed property and the slavery conse- 
quent upon it, which upheld the entire economic 
structure* of the Middle Ages. And even so, 
to-day, nobody sees, or wishes to see, that in 
our time the enslavement of the majority of 
men is based on the money-taxes, levied upon 
land and otherwise, which are collected by 
government from the subjects, — taxes col- 
lected by the administration and the army, the 
very administration and army which subsist 
upon these taxes. 



It is not surprising that the slaves themselves, 
under subjection from the most ancient times, 
are not aware of the nature of their condition, 
and regard that condition of slavery in which 
they have always lived as the natural condition 
of human life, seeing an improvement in mere 
changes of the form of slavery. 



Money. 115 

Nor is it surprising that the slaveholders, 
sometimes honestly, think that they are emanci- 
pating the slave when they loosen one screw 
when another had been tightened. 

Both the first and the second have become 
accustomed to their condition ; and the slaves, 
not knowing freedom, seek relief in mere 
changes in the form of slavery, while the slave- 
holders, desiring to veil their wrong, endeavor 
to ascribe special significance to those new 
forms of slavery which they substitute for the 
old. 

But what is surprising is that science, the so- 
called science, in investigating the economic 
conditions of the life of nations, can fail to see 
that which forms the basis of their economic 
conditions. 

It would seem that the business of science 
were to find the connection between phenomena, 
and the general course of a series of phenomena. 
. Political economy does exactly the opposite of 
this : it carefully conceals the connection be- 
tween phenomena anc [ their significance, and 
carefully avoids answers to the simplest and 



116 Money. 

most fundamental questions. Like a lazy, res- 
tive horse, it goes straight when descending a 
hill and having nothing to cany ; when there is 
any load to carry, it at once becomes stubborn, 
and refuses to go straight. As soon as the sci- 
ence is confronted with a serious, essential 
question, it at once launches into the most 
learned discourses upon matters altogether ir- 
relevant, which can only have one purpose, — 
the diverting of attention from the question. 

You ask : 

What is the course of that unnatural, mon- 
strous, unwise, and useless — nay, injurious — 
fact that some people cannot eat or work other- 
wise than as others wish them to? 

And science, with the most serious air, replies: 

The cause is that some men control the labor 
and nourishment of others, — such beinof the 
law of production. 

You ask: 

What is this right of property, under which 
certain men appropriate the land, food, and 
implements of others? 

Science, with the most serious air, answers : 



Money. 117 

This right is based on protection of one's 
labor, — that is, the protection of the labor of 
some is manifested in the seizure of the labor 
of others. 

You ask, what that money is which govern- 
ment or power everywhere coins and prints, 
and which, in such immense quantities, is forci- 
bly collected from the laborers and levied on 
future generations under the shape of govern- 
ment debts? You ask, whether this money, 
extorted in the shape of taxes and fixed at the 
extremest limits of the possibility of collection, 
whether this money has any effect on the eco- 
nomic relations of men, the relations between 
the payers and the receivers? 

And science, with a most serious air, answers : 

Money is merchandise, like sugar and calico, 
differing from other merchandise in this only, 
— that it is more convenient for exchanges. 
Taxes have no influence whatever on the eco- 
nomic conditions of the nation. The laws 
of production, exchange, and distribution of 
wealth, are one thing; taxation is another 
thing. 



118 Money. 

You ask, whether the fact that the govern- 
ment can, at will, increase taxes and consign 
all the landless to slavery has no influence on 
economic conditions ? 

Science, with the most serious countenance, 
answers : 

None whatever. The laws of production, 
exchange, distribution — are one science, while 
taxation and government economy are another 
science, the science of financial equity. 

Finally you inquire about the fact that the 
whole people is enslaved to the government, 
that the government can at will ruin every- 
body, depriving all men of the products of 
their labor and even tearing them away from 
their tasks and putting them into military 
slavery. You ask if this circumstance has any 
influence on the economic conditions. 

To this science does not even make answer. 

This is an entirely different matter, this is — 
the science of government. 

Science analyzes in the most sober manner 
the laws of economic life of nations, all the 
functions and activities of which depend on 



Money. 119 

the will of the tyrant, recognizing this influ- 
ence of the tyrant as a natural condition of 
life. Science does exactly what an investi- 
gator of the economic conditions of personal 
slaves should do if he were to ignore the in- 
fluence of the master's will upon the life of 
the slaves, — the will of him who arbitrarily 
makes these slaves to do this or that work, 
arbitrarily drives them from place to place, ar- 
bitrarily feeds them or leaves them unfed, arbi- 
trarily kills them or lets them live. 

One is fain to believe that science does this 
out of foolishness ; but one has only to look 
deeper and examine the condition of the sci- 
ence to become persuaded that the result is 
not brought about by foolishness, but by great 
intelligence. 

Science has a definite purpose, which it ac- 
complishes. 

The purpose is — to maintain the supersti- 
tions and delusions of the people and thereby 
hinder humanity in its advance toward truth 
and welfare. 

There has long existed and still exists a 



120 Money. 

terrible superstition, which has done men more 
harm, perhaps, than the most awful religious 
superstitions, and it is this superstition which 
with all its might and perseverance the so- 
called science upholds. 

The superstition is similar in every respect 
to religious superstitions. It consists in the 
affirmation that, besides the duties of man to 
man, there are still more important obligations 
to an imaginary being. In theology the imag- 
inary being is — God, and in political sciences 
the imaginary being is — Government. 

The religious superstition consists in the be- 
lief that the sacrifices, often of human lives, 
made to the imaginary being are essential, and 
that men may and should be brought to that 
state of mind by all methods, not excluding 
violence. 

The political superstition consists in the be- 
lief that, besides the duties of man to man, 
there are more important duties to the imag- 
inary being — Government, and that the sacri- 
fices — often of human lives — made to the 
imaginary being are also essential, and that 



'Money. 121 

men may and should be brought to that state 
of mind by all possible means, not excluding 
violence. 

This superstition it is, formerly maintained 
by the priests of various religions, which the 
so-called science now maintains. 

Men are subjected to the most terrible and 
worst kind of slavery; but science endeavors 
to assure them that it is all necessary and 
cannot be different. 

Government must exist for the good of the 
people and to execute its affairs, — to rule the 
people and defend it from enemies. To do 
this, government needs money and an army. 
Money should be provided by all the citizens 
of the government, and hence all the relations 
of men must be considered in their relation to 
the necessary conditions of governmentalism. 

I want to help my father in his household 
economy, says a plain, unlearned man, I wish 
to marry, and they take me and send me to 
Kazan* for six years in the capacity of a sol- 
dier. 

I serve out my soldier's term, and wish to 



122 Money, 

till the land and feed my family, but for a 
hundred versts around I am not allowed to 
sow without paying money that I have not 
got to those people who cannot sow, and they 
want so much money that I must give all my 
labor to them ; still, I manage to save some- 
thing and wish to give the whole of this to 
my children, but the district police official 
comes and takes it away as taxes ; again I 
earn something, and again everything is taken 
away. My whole economic activity, without 
any exempted portion, is at the disposal of 
the government, and I fancy that the improve- 
ment of my condition and that of my brothers 
must come from our emancipation from gov- 
ernmental claims. 

But science says : 

Your notions spring from your ignorance. 
Study the laws of production, exchange, and 
distribution of wealth, and do not confound 
questions economical with questions of govern- 
ment. The facts to which you point are not 
restraints upon your freedom, but are those 
needful sacrifices which you in common with 
others make for your freedom and your welfare. 



Money. 123 

But they have taken my son and promise to 
take all my sons as soon as they become of age, 
again says the plain man, taken by force and 
driven under bayonets to a land of which we 
had never heard, and for purposes which we 
cannot understand. But the land which we are 
not allowed to till and from the lack of which 
we die of hunger is in possession of a man 
whom we have never seen and whose usefulness 
w^e cannot even understand. But the taxes, 
to pay which the police official took my cow 
forcibly from my children, as far as I know, will 
go to the same police official and various mem- 
bers of commissions and ministers which I do 
not know and in the usefulness of which I do not 
believe. In what way, then, can all this com- 
pulsion secure my freedom, and how will all 
this wTong conduce to my welfare ? 

It is possible to force a man to be a slave and 
do that which he regards as injurious to himself, 
but it is impossible to force him to think that, 
in suffering violence, he is free, and that that 
manifest evil which he endures constitutes his 
welfare. 



124 Money. 

This seems impossible ? 

But this is what has been done in our day 
with the aid of science. 

Government, — that is, armed and aggressive 
men, determine how much they want from those 
whom they invade (as the English in their rela- 
tion to the Fijians) ; they determine how much 
labor they want of the slaves ; determine how 
many assistants they need to collect the prod- 
ucts ; organize these assistants as soldiers, as 
landed proprietors, and as tax-collectors. And 
the slaves surrender their labor and at the same 
time think that they surrender it ; not because 
their masters want it so, but because for their 
» own liberty and welfare are needed services 
and sacrifices to the deity called Government ; 
and that, aside from their services to the deity, 
they are free. 

This they believe because they have been told 
so, formerly by religion, priests, and latterly by 
science, learned people. 

But one needs only to cease to believe blindly 
what other people who call themselves priests 
or scientists say, to have the senselessness of 
these assertions made evident. 



Money. 125 

Men, oppressing others, assure them that the 
compulsion is necessary in the interest of the 
government, while the government is indispen- 
sable to the liberty and welfare of men: — accord- 
ing to this, the oppressors force men for their 
own freedom and do them wrong for their own 
good. 

But men are rational beings and hence ought 
to understand wherein is their good, and to 
have liberty to do that. 

Things, therefore, the beneficence of which is 
not clear to men and to the performance of 
which they have to be driven by force, cannot 
be for their good. 

That can alone be a good to a rational being 
which his intelligence perceives as such. 

If men, in consequence of passion or unwis- 
dom, show preference for evil, then all that men 
who are wiser than their fellows may do is to 
try to persuade these to do that which is for 
their good. 

It is possible to persuade men that their wel- 
fare will be greater if they will serve as soldiers, 
if they will be deprived of land, if they will 



126 Money. 

give away their labor in the shape of taxes ; but 
until all men consider this their good and do it 
voluntarily, it cannot be called men's welfare. 
The sole indication of the beneficence of a thing 
is that men freely perform it. 

And of such things the life of men is full. 

Ten laborers organize an association to work 
together, and in doing this they undoubtedly do 
something that is for their common benefit ; but 
it is impossible to imagine that these t laborers, 
compelling another laborer to join them and 
work with them against his will, should assert 
that the eleventh member's interests is identical 
with their own. 

The same applies to gentlemen giving a din- 
ner to some friend of theirs ; it cannot be 
affirmed that the dinner will be a good to the 
man forced to pay ten roubles for it. 

The same Avith peasants who might think 
the existence of a pond a greater good than 
the labor expended on it; for them the digging 
would be a common benefit. But for him who 
should think the existence of a pond a lesser 
good than the getting in of his crops, in which 



Money. 127 

he was tardy, the digging of the pond could 
not be a benefit. 

The same with roads built by men, with a 
church, with a museum, and with all the dif- 
ferent social and governmental affairs. 

All these affairs can be beneficial for those 
only who think them so and freely and volun- 
tarily perform them, as the purchase of tools 
for the cooperative workshop, the dinner given 
by the masters, the pond dug by the peasants. 

But things to which men must be driven by 
force, cease to be, thanks to the force, for the 
common good. 

All this is so clear and simple that, if men 
had not been deceived so long, it would not 
be necessary to make them plain. 

Suppose we are living in a village, and we 
inhabitants have all decided to construct a 
bridge over the swamp in which we get sunk. 
We have agreed or promised to give so much 
each in money, or labor, or material. We 
agreed to do it because it is more advantageous 
for us to construct the bridge than sink in 
the swamp. But in our midst there are men 



128 Money. 

for whom it is more advantageous to do with- 
out a bridge than to spend money on one, or 
who, at least, think that that is more advan- 
tageous for them. Can the forcing of these 
men into the enterprise make the bridge ad- 
vantageous to them ? Evidently not ; since 
these men, having considered voluntary co- 
operation in the construction of the bridge 
disadvantageous for them, will all the more 
regard it as disadvantageous for them to be 
forcibly compelled to cooperate. Suppose even 
that we had all, without exception, agreed to 
build the bridge and promised so much labor 
and money for each holding, but that some of 
the parties subsequently failed to make their 
contribution, their circumstances having so al- 
tered in the meantime that it became more 
advantageous for them to do without the 
bridge than to spend money on it, or because 
they had changed their mind, or even because 
they had figured out that the others, without 
their contribution, would build the bridge any- 
way, and that they would use it gratuitously. 
Can the forcing of these men into cooperation 



Money. 129 

make the sacrifices beneficial to them? Evi- 
dently not, since if they failed to carry out 
their pledge because altered circumstances had 
made the sacrifices heavier for them than the 
inconvenience of not having the bridge, then 
the compulsory sacrifices will make the evil 
still greater for them. If, however, the parties 
intended to profit by the labor of others, then 
the compulsory sacrifices will be punishment 
for their intention, and the intention, which is 
utterly unproved, will be punished before it 
has been carried out. But neither in the first 
nor in the second case will the forcing of the 
men into cooperation be as advantageous for 
them. 

And so it will be when the sacrifices are 
forced for a thing understood by everybody, 
a thing obviously and undoubtedly useful, such 
as the building of a bridge over a swamp. 

How much more unjust and senseless, then, 
will be the compelling of millions of men to 
sacrifices the purpose of which is unknown to 
them and undoubtedly injurious, as is the case 
with military service and taxation. 



130 Money. 

But according to science, all that everybody 
regards as evil is in reality a common advan- 
tage ; it turns out that there is an insignificant 
minority of men who alone know what the 
common good consists of, and despite the fact 
that all the rest of mankind consider the com- 
mon good as evil, the minority, in forcing to 
evil all the rest, can consider this evil as com- 
mon good. 

Herein is the chief superstition and the chief 
delusion which hinders the progress of hu- 
manity toward truth and welfare. 

The maintenance of this superstition and this 
delusion constitutes the end of political sciences 
generally and of so-called political economy in 
particular. 

Its purpose is to conceal from the people 
that condition of oppression and slavery in 
which they live. 

The method employed is this : in considering 
the force which conditions the whole economic 
life of the enslaved, it is pretended that this 
force is natural and inevitable, and thereby 
the people are deceived and their attention 
diverted from the real cause of their misery. 



Monet/. 131 

The abolition of slavery has gone on for 
a long time. 

Rome abolished slavery, America abolished 
it, and we did, but only the words were abol- 
ished, not the thing. 

Slavery means the freeing themselves, by 
some, of the necessity of labor for the satis- 
faction of their needs and the throwing of this 
labor upon others by means of physical force ; 
and where there is a man who does not labor 
because another is compelled to work for him, 
there slavery is. And where, as in all Euro- 
pean societies, men by force exploit the labor 
of* thousands of men and regard it as their 
prerogative, while the latter submit to force 
and regard it as their duty, there we have 
slavery in terrible proportions. 

Slavery exists. 

Where, then, do we find it ? 

Where it has always been and without which 
it cannot be : in the compulsion exercised by 
the strong and armed upon the weak and 
unarmed. 

Slavery has three fundamental methods : 



132 Money. 

direct personal violence, militarism, land-taxes, 
upheld by the military power, and direct and 
indirect taxes upon citizens, also upheld by the 
military power. 

The three methods exist to-day as much as 
formerly. Only, we do not see it, because each 
of these three forms of slavery has received a 
new excuse which veils its real significance. 

The personal violence of the armed upon the 
unarmed is justified on the ground of defence of 
fatherland against imaginary enemies ; in real- 
ity, it has the same old function — the subjec- 
tion of the conquered to the invaders. 

The indirect force of the appropriation of the 
lands of those who work on them is justified as 
compensation for services to the alleged common 
welfare and sanctioned by the right of inheri- 
tance ; in reality, it is the same land-robbery 
and enslavement which was once carried out by 
the military power. 

The last, the money-taxation species of force, 
the most powerful and popular at the present 
time, has received the most wonderful justifica- 
tion, — namely, that the denial of liberty, prop- 



Money. 133 

erty, and every good to men is in the interest of 
the common liberty and welfare. 

In reality it is nothing else than slavery, only 
impersonal. 

Where force is set up as law, there will slav- 
ery be. 

Whether it is princes and their warlike bands 
who invade, kill wives and children, and burn 
down the village ; whether slaveholders demand 
money or labor from the slaves for the land, and 
in case of non-compliance call the armed bands 
to their aid ; or whether the Ministry of Inter- 
nal Affairs is collecting money through the 
governors and police officials, and, in case of 
non-success, sending armed regiments, — as long 
as there shall be tyranny supported by the bay- 
onet there will be no distribution of wealth 
among men, but all the wealth will go to the 
tyrants. 

A striking illustration of the truth of this 
position is afforded by George's project of 
nationalizing land. 

George proposes to declare all land govern- 
ment property, and to substitute a rent-tax for 






134 Money. 

all the direct and indirect taxes. That is, every 
one using land should pay the government its 
rental value. 

What would the outcome be ? 

Land would belong to the government : to 
the English, the land of England, to the Ameri- 
cans the land of that country, and so forth ; that 
is, there would be slavery, determined by the 
quantity of land in use. Perhaps the condition 
of some laborers (such as agricultural) would 
be improved ; but since there would remain the 
forcible collection of the tax of the rental val- 
ues, there would also remain slavery. The land- 
cultivator, in a bad year, not being able to pay 
the rent exacted from him by force, would have 
to enslave himself to the man with money in 
order to keep his land and not lose everything. 

If a pail leaks, there is surely a hole in it. 

Looking at the pail, it may seem to us that 
the water comes from many holes, but no matter 
how much we might try to stop up the imagi- 
nary holes, from the outside, the pail would still 
leak. 

To stop the leaking it is necessary to find the 



Money. 135 

hole through which the water comes out and 
stop it up from within. 

It is equally the case with the means proposed 
to stop the inequitable distribution of wealth, 

— to stop up those holes through which the 
wealth of the nations goes out. 

It is said: organize cooperations of laborers; 
make capital common property; make land 
common property. 

All this is simply the stopping up from the 
outside of those holes through which it seems 
to us the water goes out. 

To stop the leaking it is necessary to find, 
inside, that hole through which the wealth 
leaves the hands of the laborers and goes into 
the hands of the non-laborers. 

That hole is the compulsion of the unarmed 
by the armed. 

The force of the military power, by which 
men are taken from their labor, and land from 
men, and the products of men's labor. 

As long as there shall be one armed man with 
a recognized right to kill airy other man, so long 
will there be inequitable distribution of wealth, 

— that is, Slavery. 



MAN AND WOMAN: THEIR RE- 
SPECTIVE FUNCTIONS. 



Translated by George Schumm. 



MAN AND WOMAN: THEIR RE- 
SPECTIVE FUNCTIONS. 



The calling of every individual, man or 
woman, consists in serving mankind. 

I believe all cultivated persons will agree to 
this general principle. 

The difference between man and woman in 
the execution of this calling lies alone in the 
means which they employ, — that is, by which 
they serve mankind. 

Man serves mankind alike by physical work, 
the securing of food, intellectual work, the 
study of the laws of nature in order to domi- 
nate over her, and social work, the institution 
of the forms of life and the determination of 
the relations between man and man. The means 
of service are very manifold for man. With the 
exception of the bearing and nursing of chil- 
dren, all human activity constitutes the field of 

his services for mankind. 

139 



140 Man and Woman: 

But woman, besides the possibility given her 
by her whole existence of serving mankind, like 
man, is by her organization inevitably called 
and drawn into that service which alone is 
excluded from the domain of the service of 
man. 

The service of mankind resolves itself into 
two parts : 

1. The improvement of the lot of living 
men and women; 

2. The perpetuation of mankind itself. 

To the former men are chiefly called, since 
the possibility of the latter service is denied 
them. To the second women are called, as 
they are exclusively capacitated therefor. 

This difference must not be forgotten or ob- 
literated; it would even be sinful (that is, erro- 
neous). Out of this difference arise the duties 
alike of the one and the other, duties that have 
not been devised by man, but which inhere in 
the nature of things. Out of this difference 
arises the estimation of the virtues and vices 
alike of woman and of man, an estimation that 
has always existed, exists now, and will never 



I 



Their Respective Functions, 141 

cease to exist as long as man is endowed with 
reason. 

It has always been, and will ever be, that 
man who spends the greater part of his life at 
the manifold physical, intellectual, and social 
work peculiar to him, and woman who spends 
the greater part of her life at the work exclu- 
sively peculiar to her of bearing, nursing, and 
rearing children, will alike feel that they are 
engaged in their proper spheres, and will alike 
elicit the love and respect of other persons, for 
both are fulfilling their part, that for which 
they are predestined by their nature. 

The calling of man is more many-sided and 
broader, that of woman more uniform and re- 
stricted, but deeper, and therefore it has always 
been and will ever be that man, with his hun- 
dreds of duties, will not therefore become a 
bad and harmful person because he has proved 
faithless to a tenth of them, since he still fulfils 
the larger part of his calling. But woman, with 
her limited number of duties, at once falls, in 
becoming faithless to one, morally below man 
who has proved faithless to several of his hun- 



142 Man and Woman: 

dreds of duties. Such has ever been the gen- 
eral opinion, and such it will ever remain, for 
such is the nature of things. 

For the purpose of fulfilling the will of God 
man must serve him in the domain of physical 
work, of thought, and of morality ; in all these 
ways he can fulfil his calling. For woman the 
means of the service of God consist principally 
and almost exclusively (because besides her no 
one else can have them) in children. 

Only by his works is man called to serve God. 

Only by her children is woman called to 
serve God. 

Therefore, the love for her children which is 
implanted in woman — an exceptional love, 
against which it is quite in vain to battle with 
reason — will and must ever be peculiar to 
woman as mother. The love for the child in 
youth is by no means egotistical, but it is the 
love of the workman for his work which he 
accomplishes while it is in his hands. Take 
away from him this love for the object of his 
work, and the work becomes impossible. As 
long as I am working on a boot, I love it most. 



Their Respective Functions. 143 

Had I not loved it, I could not have made it. 
If it should be destroyed, I should despair. I 
love it as long as I work. When I have fin- 
ished the work, there remains an attachment, a 
weak and unlawful preference. 

Just so with the mother. Man is called to 
serve mankind by manifold works, and he loves 
these works as long as he is engaged on them. 
Woman is called to serve mankind by her chil- 
dren, as long as she cares for them, till the 
third, seventh, tenth year. 

In the calling to serve God and mankind, man 
and woman are quite alike, notwithstanding the 
difference in the form of the service. The 
equality consists in the fact that the one service 
is as important as the other, that the one is 
inconceivable without the other, that the one 
is conditional on the other, and that for real 
service the knowledge of truth, without which 
the work of man and woman alike would not be 
useful, but detrimental to mankind, is as indis- 
pensable to man as to woman. 

Man is called to fulfil his manifold work, but 
his work is useful, his service, physical, intel- 



144 Man and Woman : 

lectual, and social, is fruitful only when it is 
done in the name of truth and for the benefit 
of other people. How zealously soever man 
may occupy himself by increasing his pleasures 
by idle musings, and by social activity, his work 
will not be fruitful. It will be fruitful only 
when it is directed towards lessening the evils 
of mankind originating in want, ignorance, and 
false social institutions. 

So it is with the calling of woman. The bear- 
ing, nursing, and rearing of children will be 
useful to mankind only when she shall bring up 
children not simply for her pleasure, but as 
future servants of mankind, when the rearing 
of these children shall be done in the name of 
truth and for the benefit of men, that is, when 
she shall so educate her children that they will 
become the best type of men and women, and 
workers for mankind. 

According to my view, she will be the ideal 
woman who, after having assimilated the high- 
est view of life of the age in which she lives, 
shall devote herself to her service as woman, to 
her inexorably appointed calling of bearing, 



Their Respective Functions. 145 

nursing, and educating the greatest possible 
number of children who will be capable of serv- 
ing mankind according to the view of life im- 
bibed from her. 

But, in order to achieve the highest view of 
life, it is not necessary, according to my opin- 
ion, to attend courses ; we need only to study 
the Gospels and not shut our eyes, ears, and 
especially the heart. 

But how about those who have no children, 
who do not enter the married state, the widows ? 
They will do well to take part in the manifold 
labors of men. But it is deplorable that such a 
precious instrument as woman has been de- 
prived of the possibility of fulfilling the one 
great deed peculiar to her, the more so as every 
woman, after having borne children, if she still 
has strength, will assist her husband in his 
work. The assistance of the woman in this 
work is very precious. 

But to see a young woman, capable of bearing 
children, employed at men's work, will ever be 
deplorable. To see such a woman is like the 
sight of rich loam that is covered with gravel 



146 i Man and Woman. 

for a place or a promenade. It is still more 
deplorable, as this soil could have produced 
only grain, while the woman could have pro- 
duced that which is priceless and than which 
there is nothing higher — man. 

And only she alone can accomplish that. 



THE MOTHER. 



Translated by George Schumm. 



THE MOTHER. 



You must know that, in order to be a true 
mother, it is not sufficient that you trouble and 
toil in secret without receiving praise therefor, 
— for according to the opinion of others you are 
simply fulfilling your duty, — nor must you 
expect the gratitude of those for whom you are 
laboring; and, if they cause you sorrow, or 
even reproach j t ou, you must bear it without a 
murmur. 

As in the case of the first child, so in the 
case of the second and each succeeding one ; 
the same cares, the same labors ; and yet the 
true, genuine mother will feel, in spite of every- 
thing, a quiet and deep satisfaction, although 
she cannot expect any thanks; and when all 
women shall think and feel so, the power over 
mankind will pass to them and the salvation of 
the world rest in their hands. 

149 



150 The Mother. 

But unfortunately the number of these true 
mothers is growing smaller every day. Many 
women allow themselves to be carried away by 
passion and give themselves over to men at the 
expense of their honor ; others vie with men in 
the desperate struggle for social positions that 
must seem like chimeras to the true Christian ; 
and still others, although they do not forget 
the object of their life and even fulfil their 
maternal duties, disavow them in spirit by 
regarding childless women with envy and so 
forego the sole reward that lies in the conscious- 
ness of having served as the 'instrument of 
God, and see only misery in what ought to con- 
stitute their happiness. 

We men are so entirely engrossed by our 
sham existence, we have, one and all, so com- 
plete^ forgotten the real object of life, that we 
all seem to be cast in one mould. While plac- 
ing the whole burden of life upon others, we 
are at the same time too cowardly to call our- 
selves by the true name that belongs to men 
who for their own dear ego's sake allow their 
fellow-men to perish in misery and want ! — O, 
the wretches and cowards ! 



The Mother. 151 

But among women there is a difference. 
There are those who embody the loftiest ideal 
of purity, and there are those who are pros- 
titutes. This difference will *be fully appre- 
hended only by our descendants, but we deem 
it our duty to call attention to it. 

Every woman — however magnificent her at- 
tire, though her cradle stood at the foot of a 
throne, though she had mastered all the wealth 
of science — who does not forego sexual asso- 
ciation, but frustrates the possibility of becom- 
ing a mother, is a prostitute ! 

Every other woman, how degraded soever, 
but who submits to her husband with the con- 
sciousness of the possibility of becoming a 
mother, fulfils the highest object of life : higher 
than she there is no one : and if you are of 
these women, you will not say after you have 
borne two, or even after you have borne twenty, 
children : Enough ! just as a laborer of fifty 
years of age does not say he has worked enough 
as long as he can eat and sleep and his mus- 
cles demand work. 

If you are of these women, you will not 



152 The Mother. 

burden other mothers with the cares of nursing 
and educating your children, just as a laborer 
does not transfer his almost finished work to 
another for completion, since he has put his 
whole energy into it : the harder you labor, the 
richer and the happier will your existence be- 
come. If, now, you are of these women, — and 
fortunately for mankind there are such, — -you 
can secure the observance of the same law of 
the fulfilment of the will of God that serves 
you as a rule of conduct in the lives of your 
husband, your children, and your neighbors. 

If you are such a mother, you know by your 
own experience that only self-denying, unosten- 
tatious labor, which imperils even your own 
life and which taxes your strength to the utmost 
in order to maintain the life of another being, 
can yield you true satisfaction, but that it also 
gives you the right to make the same demands 
on others and to call on your husbands to like- 
wise subject themselves to the labors of life. 
You will measure and appreciate the worth of 
man according to these aspirations, and prepare 
your children for the fact that similar labors are 
awaiting them. 



The Mother. 153 

A true mother, who is conscious of the will 
of God, will also hold her children to the fulfil- 
ment of this divine will. To such a true mother 
it is torture to see her child overfed, pampered, 
and dressed up, because she knows that all this 
will aggravate the fulfilment of the will of God 
on the part of the child which she has revealed 
unto him ; nor will she teach that which will en- 
able the boy and the girl to escape the troubles 
and cares of life, but that which will make 
them strong to bear the troubles and cares of 
life. Nor does she need to ask herself, what 
shall I teach, wdiat shall I prepare my children 
to expect ; she knows what man is destined for, 
and therefore she also knows what she has to 
teach and what she has to prepare her children 
to expect. Such a woman will not only not 
support her husband in the fraudulent and false 
endeavor of exploiting the labor of others, but 
look upon such conduct with contempt and 
horror, since it acts as a twofold temptation 
to her children. Such a mother will not con- 
sider white hands and fine manners in the choice 
of a husband for her daughter, and since she 



154 The Mother. 

knows what is true conduct and what is fraud, 
she will always and in every instance, not 
excepting her husband, prize only that true 
labor which may even exact our own life and 
despise that false and pompous labor whose end 
is simply to escape all true and honest labor. 

The women who renounce the life purpose 
of their sex and yet raise the claim of their 
rights need not say that such a point of view 
is impossible for a mother, that a mother is 
too much bound up with her children by love 
to deny them dainties, pleasures, and dress; 
nor need they trouble themselves about the 
future of the children if the husband is with- 
out wealth or a permanent position, fret about 
the future of the daughters who marry or the 
sons who do not get an education. 

All this is only a lie and a sham. 

A true mother will think differently. 

You say you cannot resist the wish to give 
the child sweetmeats or playthings or to take 
him to the circus ? But why do you not then 
give him poisonous berries, or let him ride 
alone in a boat, or take him to a cafe chart- 



The Mother. 155 

tant? Why can you forbear doing the latter, 
but not the former ? 

Because you are untruthful. 

You say that you loA^e your children too 
much, that you are concerned about their life, 
you fear they might suffer hunger and cold, 
and that for these reasons you respect the 
means and ways employed by the husband 
in the pursuit of the business which you your- 
selves admit to be unjust. You are in fear 
of future misfortune, perhaps poverty of your 
children — in the distant future and doubtful 
— and therefore confirm your husband in what 
you yourselves have recognized as unjust. But 
what are you doing meanwhile to protect your 
children against misfortune? How much time 
do you devote to them during the day? It 
is indeed much if you give them one-tenth of 
your time. The rest of the time they are in 
strange hands, in the hands of hirelings, often 
of persons whom you have taken from the 
street, or certain institutions, and who can 
ruin your children in body and soul. Your 
children must eat, consequently they are given 



156 The Mother. 

nourishment. Who prepares the meals, and 
what is furnished them, you do not know. 
Who instructs them in morality? That also 
you do not know. Therefore also do not say 
that you suffer evil for the love of your chil- 
dren : it is not true ! 

You do evil because you love it ! 

A true mother who sees in the birth and 
education of her children her unselfish life 
purpose and the fulfilment of the will of God 
will think and act differently. She does not 
think and act so, because she knows that her 
duty does not consist in making of her chil- 
dren whatever is agreeable to her or the domi- 
nant tendency; she knows that her children, 
that is, her descendants, are the highest and 
holiest that there is in reality for man, and 
that it is the purpose of her life to serve this 
highest and holiest with all her powers. 

She knows that she is incessantly hovering 
between life and death when she is bearing a 
scarcely budding life to maturity in her womb, 
but that life and death are not her concern ; 
but that it is her concern to serve this life; 



The Mother. 157 

and this service she will not seek in round- 
about ways, but she will go straight towards 
her aim. 

Such a true mother gives birth to and nurses 
the child herself, prepares food and drink for 
him, washes him, instructs him, sleeps and 
talks with him, because she sees therein her 
life purpose. Only such a mother will not 
look for an external provision for her children 
in the money of her husband or in diplomas 
granted by the government; she will simply 
and solely strive towards making them skilful 
to fulfil the will of God, strong to bear trouble 
and labor, even if at the peril of life, since she 
will regard that as the sole happiness of life. 
Such a mother will not ask others for advice ; 
she herself knows all and fears nothing. 

If in the case of a man or of a childless 
woman doubts may arise concerning the course 
which they must pursue in order to fulfil the 
will of God, this course is clearly laid down 
in the case of a mother ; and if she pursues 
this course honestly, she will attain to the 
summit of happiness to which only a human 



158 The Mother. 

being can attain, and thus become a luminous 
guide to the men and women who are striving 
to reach it. Only such a mother can calmly 
say under the shadow of death to Him who 
created her and whom she served by the bear- 
ing and rearing of her most dearly beloved 
children : " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant 
depart in peace." . . . 

This, however, is the highest perfection 
towards which mankind is aspiring as to 
the highest happiness of life. 

Yes, such women who fulfil their calling 
rule over the ruling men ; such women prepare 
a new posterity and guide public opinion, and 
therefore such women hold within their hands 
the highest power for the redemption of man- 
kind from the existing and impending evils 
of our time. 

Yes, you women who are mothers, in your 
hands above all rests the salvation of the world. 



A SECOND SUPPLEMENT TO THE 
KREUTZER SONATA. 



Translated by George Schumm. 



A SECOND SUPPLEMENT TO THE 
KEEUTZER SONATA. 



What above all I have to say in regard 
to marital relations is that, when I am treating 
of how married people ought to live, I do not 
only not mean to be understood as saying that 
I myself have been and am still living as we 
ought to live ; but that on the contrary I know 
so well how we ought to live because I myself 
have been living as we ought not to live. 

I will not retract anything of what I have 
said ; on the contrary, I would only fully reiter- 
ate all I have said ; but it is nevertheless neces- 
sary to explain myself more exactly. It is 
necessary because we have so far strayed from 
what our life ought to be according to our 
conscience and the teaching of Christ that the 
truth strikes us as painfully — as I know by 
my own experience — as it would strike a 

161 



162 A Second Supplement to 

prosperous provincial merchant to be told not 
to accumulate any more money for his family 
and a new church bell, but to give away all 
he has, simply and solely that he may escape 
evil. 

You ask : " Is there to be no sexual associ- 
ation between married people, then? " Of course 
not ! I have myself already thought so, and we 
all know at the bottom of our heart how deeply 
it offends our native modesty. 

I will write just c,s the thoughts come to me 
what I think about this matter. 

Every individual is endowed with a powerful 
amorous instinct, which at once begins to assert 
itself when persons of different sex meet in 
society, and which leads to marriage. Children 
are the natural fruits of marriage. With the 
advent of pregnancy the sexual association of 
married people enters a stage of indifference 
that would interrupt all sexual relations, as is 
the case among animals, if man did not regard 
sexual association as a lawful and sanctified 
pleasure. This sexual indifference, still further 
influenced by the care for the birth and nursing 



The Kreutzer Sonata, 163 

of the child, continues until the weaning of 
the latter, and in a good marriage — and herein 
consists the difference between man and beast 
— the amorous relations of the couple are re- 
sumed only after the weaning of the child. 

How far are we still from such a state of 
things ; and yet it is plain that it must be so, 
and for the following reasons : 

First. When a woman is not in the child- 
bearing stage, — that is, during the intervals 
between menstruation, — sexual association is 
something unnatural ; it is nothing more than a 
carnal and lewd pleasure, offensive to native 
modesty, as every conscientious person knows, 
like other repulsive, unnatural sexual aberra- 
tions, and the person who succumbs to it falls 
below the beast, — that is, he uses his reason for 
the purpose of acting contrary to the laws of 
reason. 

Second. Everybody knows and all are agreed 
that sexual association debilitates and exhausts 
a person, debilitates him indeed in the most 
essentially human function, the function of 
thought. 



164 A Second Supplement to 

" Moderation ! " exclaim the defenders of the 
present order of things. But we cannot talk 
about moderation where the laws prescribed by 
reason are transgressed. But the evil of de- 
bauchery — for sexual association outside the 
free period is debauchery — in the case of a man 
within the limits of moderation (it is disgusting 
to employ this word in reference to such a sub- 
ject) may not be so serious if he knows only 
one woman; but what would be moderation in 
the case of a man would be excess in the case 
of a woman in the stage of pregnancy or the 
period of nursing. 

I believe this is the principal source of hysteria 
and of the nervous troubles of women, and of 
this evil woman ought to be delivered so that 
she may be one in body and in spirit with her 
husband, and not a servant of Satan, as she is 
now, but a servant of the Lord. 

This ideal is far distant, but sublime, and why 
should we not strive to attain it? 

It seems to me that marriage ought to take 
the following shape : the couple unite sexually 
under the irresistible force of the amorous in- 



The Kreutzer Sonata. 165 

stinct, the woman becomes pregnant, and the 
two live like brother and sister, avoiding every- 
thing that might prove detrimental to the birth 
and the nursing of the child, and suppressing 
instead of arousing, as is now done, all sexual 
temptation. 

But the man who has hitherto led a de- 
bauched life transfers his portion of moral cor- 
ruption to the woman, infects her with his own 
sensuality, and taxes her with the unbearable 
burden of being at one and the same time mis- 
tress, mother, and human being, and she devel- 
ops, too, into an excellent mistress, a tortured 
mother, and a suffering, nervous, and hysterical 
human being. And the man loves her as his 
mistress, ignores her as a mother, and hates her 
on account of her nervousness and hysteria 
which he himself has caused. 

It seems to me that this is the source of all 
the sufferings that arise in every family. 

According to my opinion the man should live 
with the pregnant woman like brother and sis- 
ter; she bears her child in peace and suckles 
him, whereby she prospers morally, and only in 



166 A Second Supplement to 

the free period the couple renew for a few 
weeks their amorous relations, which are again 
followed by a period of rest. 

The amorous instinct seems to me like the 
pressure of steam, which would cause a locomo- 
tive to explode if the pressure did not open the 
safety valve. The valve opens only under great 
pressure ; otherwise it is always kept closed, and 
carefully closed, and it must be our aim to keep 
it consciously tightly closed and held down 
moreover by a weighted lever to the limit of 
pressure so that it cannot open. 

In this sense I also understand the words of 
the Bible : " He that is able to receive it, let 
him receive it " ; that is, let every one strive 
not to marry, but if he has taken a wife, let him 
live with her like brother and sister. 

Bui the married couple unite sexually and 
open the safety valve ; we ourselves, however 5 
must not open it, as we are constantly doing, 
because we regard sexual association as a law- 
ful pleasure. 

It is lawful only when we cannot resist it, 
and when it breaks through in spite of our wish 



The Kreutzer Sonata. 167 

to the contrary. But how are we to limit it if 
we cannot resist it ? 

How many such questions there are, and how 
unanswerable they seem, and yet how simply 
they may be answered if we have to answer 
them only for ourselves and not for others. 
For others we only know the following order to 
hold. An old man indulges in sexual associa- 
tion with a prostitute, — that is extremely dis- 
gusting. A young man does the same, — that 
is less disgusting. An old man maintains inti- 
mate relations with a woman, — that is disgust- 
ing, but not so disgusting as the association of a 
young man with a prostitute. A young man 
maintains intimate relations with a woman, — 
that is less disgusting, but still disgusting. 
Such an order is quite proper for others, and 
we all, especially if we are innocent children 
and young people, know it very well. But for . 
ourselves there is something besides this. Every 
pure youth and every pure maiden has the con- 
sciousness, largely clouded by false opinions, 
that it becomes them to preserve their purity ; 
they have the wish, too, to preserve it, and rec- 



168 A Second Supplement to 

ognize the misery and the shame which its loss 
under whatever condition involves. There is 
a voice of conscience that always speaks out 
plainly and clearly, and ever admonishes us, 
before and after, that it is sinful, that it is 
shameful. 

All depends on- insight, on the understanding. 

The world thinks it is not immoral to in- 
dulge in love, no matter if it has been found 
moral to open the safety valve and let off the 
steam; but according to divine law it is only 
moral to lead a true life, to serve God in the 
measure of our capacities, — that is, to love 
our neighbor and his spirit and above all that 
which is nearest to us : our own wife, and to 
assist her to receive the truth, and not to be- 
fog her receptiveness for truth by making her 
a tool of our own lust, — that is, to work with 
steam and take every precaution that it shall 
not escape through the safety valve. 

"But thus," you say, "the human race will 
become extinct." 

First. As long as we do not seriously strive 
to have no sexual association, the safety valve 
will remain and there will be children. 



The Kreutzer Sonata. 169 

But why lie ? Are we perhaps consciously 
counteracting the extinction of the human race 
during sexual association? Or are we merely 
thinking of our pleasure ? Out with the truth ! 
You say the human race will become extinct ! 
Indeed, brute man ! And is that perhaps a 
misfortune ? The antediluvian animals have 
become extinct, brute man also will become 
extinct — if we judge by the external, by space 
and time. Let him become extinct. I will 
not grieve over this biped brute any more than 
over the ichthyosaurus and kindred monsters 
— if only the true life, the love of beings that 
are capable of love, does not cease. And that 
will never cease if the human race grows less 
in consequence of renouncing carnal lust in 
obedience to love ; but it will grow infinitely 
more intense, indeed, so intense, that the con- 
tinuation of the human race will no longer be 
necessary for thoso who are living a true life. 

Carnal love is therefore still necessary only 
to the end of evolving such beings out of the 
men of to-day. 



THE FRUITS OF CULTURE. 

/ 
A COMEDY IN FOUR ACTS. 

By COUNT LEO TOLSTOI. 

TRANSLATED BY 

GEORGE SCHUMM. 

In this book, published for the first time in English by Mr. Tucker, 
Count Tolstoi continues the war which he began in "The Kreutzer 
Sonata," but substitutes for the terrible weapons which he used in that 
onslaught the piercing shafts of ridicule and satire. The follies of the 
so-called " cultured " classes are exhibited in a most humorous picture of 
their fashions, " fads," dress, habits, morals, vices, and mental freaks, 
and the story hinges in particular upon the effect of the craze of Modern 
Spiritualism upon an aristocratic family in Russia. 



Boston Herald. — " There is always an undercurrent of bitterness in what Tolstoi 
writes, and it is more clearly perceptible in his comedy, ' The Fruits of Culture,' than it 
is in his more serious writing. The scenes of the play pass in the house of a Russian 
noble, and its theme is the cleverness with which an artlessly artful child of the people 
plays upon the noble's weakness for her own benefit and that of her equals. . . . The 
picture seems true, and, in spite of its surface humor, very melancholy." 



Price : In cloth, 50 cents -, in paper, 25 cents. 

Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the Publisher, 

BENJ. R. TUCKER - - - Box 3366, 

BOSTON, MASS. 



"A novel that has no equivalent in the literature of this 
century.'" — Charles Monselet. 

mu Uncle Benjamin. 

A HUMOROUS, SATIRICAL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL NOVEL. 

By CLAUDE TILLIER. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY 

BENJ. R. TUCKER. 

WITH A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE AND WORKS BY 

LUDWIC PFAU. 

This novel, though it has enjoyed the honor of three translations into German, ha? 
never before been translated into English. It is one of the most delightfully witty 
works ever written. Almost every sentence excites a laugh. It is thoroughly realistic, 
but not at all repulsive. Its satirical treatment of humanity's foibles, and its jovial but 
profound philosophy, have won its author the title of " the modern Rabelais.''' 



PRESS NOTICES. 

Detroit News, — " The book is certainly the most remarkable work published in 
this country this year." 

Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. — " So remarkable a book that it is surprising 
it should have remained so long without having been given a setting in English. . . . 
It is wonderfully absorbing in interest, Its humor and its pathos are equally keen." 

Utica Press. — " It pricks the bubble of pretensions, lays bare the sham of title, 
makes mock of marriage for money, reveals the fountain of kindness, and shows the 
gullibility of human credulity." 

Richmond Despatch.— -"This book truly may be called a 'find.' It is worthy to 
rank with 'Tom Jones,' 'Tristram Shand)*-,' Goldsmith's 'Vicar,' ' Don Quixote,' and 
'Pickwick ' in wit, humor, satire, and philosophy. 'My Uncle Benjamin ' is a classic." 

Detroit Free Press.—" One of the cleverest books that has come from the Ameri- 
can press this year. As a character study it is beyond a.l praise." 

Boston Woman's Journal. — " This story is lively, sardonic, witty, and superficial. 
It will delight a certain class of readers because it is reckless, and another class because 
it is blasphemous." 

Philadelphia Item. — "Altogether a capital piece of work." 



312 LARGE PAGES. 
Price: In cloth, $1.00; in paper, 50 cents. 

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^Better than f" wrote Victor Hugo to Felix Pyat, "you have proved 
the royalty of genius and the divinity of love" 



A RIVAL OF "LES MISERABLES." 

The Rug-Picker of Paris 

By FELIX PYAT. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY 

BENJ. R. TUCKER. 

This masterpiece of fiction was originally written as a play, and as 
such achieved the greatest success known to the French stage. Re- 
cently, and just before his death, the author elaborated his play into a 
novel, in which form it presents a complete panorama of the Paris of the 
present century. 

What Great Critics think of it. 

Heinrich Heine. — "The passion of Shakspere and the reason of Moliere." 

Alexandre Dumas (to the author). — "You have killed Frederic Lemaitre for us. 
After his Father Jean in 'The Rag-picker of Paris,' he can create no other role." 

Victoria, Queen of England (to the Actor Lemaitre, after seeing him play in the 
piece). — " Is there, then, such misery in the Faubourg St. Antoine ?" 

Frederic Lemaitre (in reply). — " It is the Ireland of Paris." 

Theophile Gautier.— "The work of a Titan " 

Sainte-Beuve. — "The paragon of the democratic-republican school." 

Victor Hugo. — "A fortunate drama, come late enough to represent the whole 
people." 

325 LARGE PAGES. 
Price: In cloth, $1.00; in paper, 50 cents. 

The cloth edition contains as a frontispiece a fine portrait of the author. 
Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the Publisher, 

BENJ. R. TUCKER, - - Box 3366, 

BOSTON, MASS. 



SIXTY-SECOND THOUSAND. 



TIib Kieutzei Sonata. 

% 
By COUNT LEO TOLSTOI. 



PRESS NOTICES. 

The Critic, New York. — " One hardly dares speak of the ' Kreutzer Sonata.* It is 
like a moral earthquake, shattering the very foundations on which society is built, and 
causing the ground to crumble beneath our feet. So daring a treatment of a daring 
theme has never before been attempted in literature. Nothing has ever been given to 
the world quite like this tremendous object-lesson projected on the canvas in colossal 
proportions, with every shadow deepened, every line magnified and brought into appall- 
ing relief." 

Kate Field^s Washington. — "Why is 'The Kreutzer Sonata' prohibited? I am at 
a loss to imagine, unless it be that Tolstoi has told the truth — very brutally — about a 
very brutal condition of things. If it be a crime to tell the truth, of course Tolstoi 
should be suppressed. But is it?" 

Buffalo Courier. — "That singular code of morals which too many men hold, that 
they may indulge in shameful license, and still call themselves by the 'grand old name 
of gentleman,' while their sisters and sweethearts must be utterly pure in their lives and 
conduct, receives a stunning rebuke in this work." 

Boston Transcript. — " It is probably one of the most moral books ever written. . . . 
As children sit spellbound, frozen to the spot, though desiring to fly, through the reading 
of the ' Ancient Mariner,' so this generation of ours, which has strong moral impulses, 
but feels, nevertheless, a weight as of death about its neck, must listen to this grim story 
of the great Russian novelist and prose poet, whether it likes it or not." 

St. Louis Republic. — "The peculiarity and audacity of Tolstoi is that he has taken 
this subject out of its usual dress of secret or semi-medical advice ' for private circula- 
tion only,' and clothed it in the garb of fiction, intended for universal reading." 



' The edition published by Bent. R. Tucker is the only complete 
and correct edition published in America. 



Price: In cloth, $1.00; in paper, 50 cents. 

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What's To Be Done ? 

A NIHILISTIC ROMANCE. 

By N. G. TCHERNYCHEWSKY. 

WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR. 



WRITTEN IN PRISON. 



SUPPRESSED BY THE CZAR. 



The Author over Twenty Years an Exile in Siberia. 



PRESS COMMENTS. 

Boston Advertiser. — "To call the book the 'Uncle Tom's Cabin ' of Nihilism is 
scarcely extravagance." 

Boston Courier. — " It is perhaps the book which has most powerfully influenced 
the youth of Russia in their growth into Nihilism." 

Providence Star. — "As a revelation of folk life it is invaluable: we have no other 
Russian pictures that compare with it." 



329 LARGE PAGES. 
Price: In cloth, $1.00; in paper, 35 cents. 

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